The Pine Valley Zone
by Spamela
Summary: Pine Valley and Interdimensional Reality clash in a battle for the future of Earth. Edmund Grey returns in spirit form to settle old scores and find his happily ever after.
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter 1 – "She Sees Dead People"_

The first time Lily saw Edmund after his funeral, she was slightly taken aback. After all, the last time she saw him he was being bludgeoned by a shovel. Lily shuddered at the memory. There was all that red! Edmund wasn't leaking red now, as he sat beside her on the park bench. He looked perfectly all right, as if he were still alive. No red in sight. But that could change any second, she thought. Weren't things all around her always changing every second? Nevertheless, she decided to speak to him. No point in being rude, after all.

"Hi," she ventured. "I'm Lily. I have autism spectrum disorder. Aren't you Edmund Grey. I thought you were, um…"

"Dead," he finished for her. "I am. Does that bother you?"

"Not unless you make everything red again. Like in the stable. Like when Ryan's brother hit you with the shovel." She shuddered again.

"Sorry about that, Lily. I didn't mean to spook you." He smiled. "Although a spook is what I've become!"

"I shouldn't be able to see you," she realized aloud. "Why can I see you? Can other people see you?" Her voice was rising with the beginnings of hysteria.

"Only you can see me," Edmund said in a comforting tone. "Because you're special. Your mind works differently from most people's. You know that, Lily. You are amazingly talented."

"I'm good at puzzles," Lily agreed. "And math. Math is my favorite thing, next to Aidan, who isn't my boyfriend anymore, except I can't make the butterfly feeling go away every time I see him. Erica said that in time that feeling will fade. Erica's has had lots of experience with boyfriends."

Edmund nodded. "So I've heard."

Lily nodded. "Erica has had a lot of boyfriends. But I don't think she can see dead people."

"Probably not," Edmund said. "Lily, don't be afraid of me. I need your help, that's why I'm here."

"I'll try not to be afraid, Edmund. Counting always helps. Do you mind if I start counting backwards by three from three million three hundred thousand and thirty-three?"

"Yeah," Edmund admitted. "I'd mind that. Besides, I've got to speak with you, and I need your full concentration. It's important."

"How about two million two hundred thousand twenty-two by two's?" she tried. "That would calm me right down."

"Lily, there's a mystery I need you to help me solve."

"No there isn't," she said at once. "Your murder has been solved. It was Jonathan with the shovel in the stable."

Edmund sighed. "If it were only that simple!"

Lily was as perplexed as she looked. "It is simple. What isn't it simple?"

"Because I need to know why it happened."

"I told you why. Jonathan –"

"I need to know why I was written out."

Lily's head was beginning to ache, even with no red in sight. "I don't know what that means."

"I know you don't," Edmund agreed. "With any luck you won't know about being written out for many, many years to come." He shook his head. "But you've got to help me, Lily. I can't get through to anybody else in this town, I'm sure of it."

"I would help you if I could," Lily said slowly. "But you're dead, so I don't see how I could be of any –"

"Lily, I need to know when this was planned. Was it before I was shot? Was this in the works all of last year? Even before Maria came back and the children aged?"

Lily had no idea what Edmund was talking about.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe we should go ask somebody for help."

Edmund shrugged. "Who can I ask but you? Of course, Opal has links to the Other Side, but she was busy coloring my mother-in law's hair when I stopped by the Glamourama this morning. I couldn't bring myself to distract her. Two processes. She was putting in highlights, working with tin foil and you know how involved that can get!"

Lily bit her lip. "I don't think she would have minded the distraction that much. Opal is a really nice lady, and I'm sure she'll help you if she can!"

_What happens next? Will Opal help Edmund? Will Edmund find out why he was killed off the Show? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Reviews are welcome!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2 – "Ghost in the Glamourama"_

Opal dropped two curlers, her favorite hairbrush and her jaw. There was no denying that the blob of light walking through the door to the Glamourama's main salon was in the shape of Edmund Grey, a man she had known and respected when he was alive, and mourned for along with the rest of the town when he was so tragically cut down smack in his prime.

"Hi, Opal," Lily was saying to her. She was standing right next to the blob.

"Opal!" her client cried out. "You're pulling my hair!"

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Santos," Opal murmured. "Child, please get away from that apparition!"

"Apparition?" Mrs. Santos spun around in her chair and faced Lily and Edmund. "Opal, what are you talking about? Lily is standing by herself. Lily, is anything the matter?"

"Not exactly," Lily estimated. "Opal, Edmund needs your help."

"Edmund?" Mrs. Santos echoed. "Lily, my son-in-law is – "

"Kaput," Edmund agreed. But only Lily and Opal heard him.

"Uh, Isabelle," Opal said, searching for the words, "we're gonna have to reschedule."

Isabelle frowned. "Opal, you just washed my hair. I'm wringing wet!"

Opal handed her a towel and her coat. "Isabelle, I'll make it up to you. You know me! I'll be in touch!" In another ten seconds a completely confused and annoyed Isabelle Santos was out the door of the Glamourama, the towel wrapped topsy-turvey around her still dripping hair.

"My best client, and on account of you two I hadda make her skadaddle!"

Edmund chuckled. "Well, Opal, you know I'd let you give _me_ a permanent, only I don't think it would take because of all the formaldehyde they used on me."

Opal plopped down on the seat Mrs. Santos has just been ushered out of. "My stars! Who'd have thought I'd ever be talking with a ghost right here in my salon! And here I sit without so much as a crystal ball or a ouji board or a Tarot deck!" She sniffed in frustration. "Or a camcorder. I'd sure like a picture of this for my next Christmas Card!"

Edmund had to smile. "Opal, you're a treasure!"

Lily shook her head. "No, she isn't, Edmund. Opal is a real person. Like I am and you used to be!

"I know what he means, honey," Opal smiled. "You were always on the top line of my book, Edmund. Sorry you're no longer with us."

"He is with us," Lily corrected her. "And he has a problem."

"I'll say!" Opal said.

"I need to know why I was written out," Edmund revealed to Opal.

Opal grimaced. "Salary, was what I heard. Why, you think there was a plot?"

"There's always a plot," Lily told them.

"Not always," Edmund differed with her gently. "Sometimes there's only a storyline." He sighed. "And sometimes not even that."

Opal and Lily nodded in sad agreement.

"Edmund," Opal asked suddenly, "Why are you here? What do you really want?"

That was easy for Edmund to answer. "I want things to be the way they were. I want to go back in time."

Opal bent down and picked up the dropped curler. "I hear that. Too bad there isn't a time machine in Pine Valley."

Edmund grinned. "Funny you should say that!"

_There's a time machine Pine Valley? What happens next? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3 – Edmund's Time Machine_

Edmund stood grinning before the bewildered Opal and Lily.

"There's a time machine in Pine Valley?" Opal asked, to make sure she had heard him correctly.

He nodded. "Only I don't know where it is. That's where you two come in."

Opal made a face. "This is the dangdest thang I ever heard! Edmund has being a ghost made you lose your mind? How could there be a time machine in Pine Valley? How could there be a time machine anywhere? Everybody knows there's no such things as a --"

"Not everybody, Opal," Lily interrupted her. "I read a book once by Jules Verne that had a time machine in it. Actually, that was the name of the book. Did you ever read that book, Edmund?"

"Sure did, honey. Jules Verne knew what he was writing about."

"That was _science fiction_!" Opal said with emphasis. "There never was a real time machine!"

"But Edmund says there is," Lily pointed out.

"It's mine," Edmund revealed. "I invented it. It's what brought me here in the first place."

Opal made another face. "Your agent brought you here in the first place, sweetie. Just like everybody else!"

Edmund did everything he could to keep his voice even. "Opal, I am not like everybody else. For one thing, I'm a ghost. And for another thing, I'm from the future."

"Oh, for pity's --"

"Opal, Edmund can't lie!" Lily cried out in his defense. "Oh, what a second. _I_ can't lie. I don't know whether or not Edmund can lie."

"I can lie," Edmund announced. "But I'm not lying."

For some crazy reason they both found themselves believing him.

"So how did you lose your time machine?" they asked him in unison.

"Damned if I know," he replied at once.

More than slightly exasperated, Opal started cleaning hairbrushes in the sink with a vengeance.

"The thing is that when I was alive, I didn't remember having gotten here in a time machine. I thought I was an actor in a soap opera."

Opal put more brushes in the sink. "You _were_ an actor in a soap opera!"

Edmund had to make her understand. "Opal, there are levels of reality. There is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio."

Opal started drying the brushes and putting them away. "Who the hell is Horatio?"

"He's a character in 'Hamlet" by William Shakespeare," Lily explained. "He's a friend of Hamlet and he dies in the last scene."

"Horatio didn't have a time machine," Edmund put in.

Opal snorted. "But you do?"

Edmund nodded. "If only I could remember where I left it!"

"Maybe you parked it downtown," Lily theorized. She loved mysteries and took them where she could find them.

"No, it wasn't a car," Edmund was somehow certain.

"Then what was it?" demanded Opal. "A roller-coaster?"

"Nope, I don't think so," Edmund said. "Opal, I'm sorry you're doubting me."

Opal was sorry too. "It's just so far-fetched. Why would you time machine yourself from the future into a soap opera?"

Edmund shrugged. "That's the mystery."

"I'm good at solving mysteries," Lily told them both.

"Then here it is," Edmund said. "Somewhere in Pine Valley is my time machine. And if we don't find it first and deactivate it, it's going to bring matter together with antimatter. And you know what happens then."

"Boom?" guessed Lily.

_Will Edmund find the time machine before matter collides into antimatter? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4 -- "The Widow Grey"_

Maria never liked black dresses, not even the strapless sequined variety. But since Edmund was murdered and everything in her life had begun falling apart, black had become her favorite color.

"It's all your fault, meeha," her Mother greeted her. "You've got to accept that."

"What's all my fault, Mama?" the former Mistress of Wildwind asked numbly.

"Everything," her Mother replied. "Meeha, can I borrow your blowdryer?"

Maria realized that her Mother's hair was soaking wet. Next she realized that her soaking wet Mother was dripping all over one of Wildwind's most expensive carpets. Next she realized that she didn't give a rat's –

"Maria! The Blowdryer!" her Mother commanded, as only she could.

Maria exited, grateful for an excuse to leave her Mother's dripping, disapproving presence. On her way to her bedroom, where she was sure she had last seen the blowdryer, she passed her daughter, Maddie, who was even angrier than her Mother.

"Sweetie, this can't go on! We have to talk!"

"Get stuffed," Maddie said sweetly.

Maria felt as if she had been slapped hard. "You can't talk that way to—"

"Sure I can. I just did."

Maddie had written off Maria when she learned she had been unfaithful with Zach, an old flame. And although actual adultery may not have happened, what was the difference? Betrayal was betrayal. Her Mother was in love with a man who wasn't her Father. And now her Father was gone forever. It was like Maddie had lost both parents. She had never felt so alone in her life. Even her brother Sam didn't help much. He was as bitter as she. "Orphans," she thought now. "She's turned us into orphans."

"Maddie, please! I never meant to hurt anybody! You and Sam have got to believe that!"

But it was too late. Her daughter was running down the stairs and out the door, nearly knocking down her still drenched, still furious Grandmother in the process.

Maria found the blowdryer where she'd left it and hurried down the stairs with it.

"Your daughter hates you," she was told as she handed over the appliance.

"You're welcome, Mama. Now if you don't mind, I'd better get to the hospital to check on Ryan. He's being released today."

"What was wrong with Ryan?" Isabella wanted to know.

"Shot, stabbed, strangled. You know, the usual."

Isabella shook her head. "Everybody in this town gets crazier and crazier. Opal threw me out of the Glamourama because she had to talk with Lily and her invisible friend."

Maria laughed. "What?"

Isabella nodded. "They think I didn't understand, but you know me, I don't miss much. She called it an apparition."

That was odd. "Well, Opal has always been out there. But I never heard of Lily seeing things or anything like that." She sighed. "Could have been a reaction to what she witnessed that awful night in the stable. Poor kid!"

"Poor Edmund, you mean," Isabella said sternly. "First crippled, then betrayed, then murdered. Did I mention he was betrayed, Maria?"

To Mrs. Santos her son-in-law was a martyred saint. Maria had no intention of ruining that image, no matter how far from the truth it was.

"So Opal saw an apparition," Maria said, hoping to change the subject.

"I heard Opal is in league with the devil," Isabella said matter-of-factly. "Fortune-telling and worse. It's been said that from time to time she's contacted the dead." She crossed herself.

Maria blinked. "Seances? She's held seances?" Maria held her breath. An idea was forming itself. An incredible, wonderful, miraculous idea.

Mama Santos went in search of an outlet for the blowdryer, while her daughter began to do something she hadn't allowed herself to do in an eternity. Maria began to hope.

_What does Maria have in mind? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5 – "Who Would Notice If a Time Machine Appeared?"_

"So there are two mysteries," Lily was summarizing. "The first is why Edmund was written off and the second is what happened to the time machine."

"Give the lady a cigar!" Edmund said approvingly. Lily was making communicating with the still-alive and still-employed easier than he had thought it would be.

"I don't want a cigar," Lily said at once. "I don't smoke. Not only because I'm too young but also because smoking is unhealthy and makes you cough. I don't like to cough. And even if I smoked, I don't think I would be smoking a cigar." She hoped Edmund's ghost wouldn't be offended.

"Lily, where have you been all my life?" he laughed, not sounding offended at all.

"You mean, where have I been all your afterlife," she said correctly, careful not to call him dead, which she was sure he did not like being.

"Boom?" Opal echoed. "The time machine is going to explode?"

"The time machine is going to make EVERYTHING explode," Lily told her. "Matter and antimatter cannot exist in the same place and time. I read that in a text book on quantum physics and string theory. Edmund is saying that unless it's turned off somehow, the time machine will bring matter and antimatter together, and that would result in total destruction."

"Total destruction of what?" Opal asked, just to make sure.

"Of all matter and antimatter," Edmund replied. "Which is --"

"Everything," Lily finished. "And I don't want a cigar, Edmund."

"But I want a drink," Opal decided, pushing aside the hairnets and cotton balls which filled one of the overhead cabinets. From inside it she fished out a half-consumed bottle of Jack Daniels. "Le chaim!" she toasted.

"That means "to life"," Lily told Edmund.

"I know," Edmund knew.

"I'd offer you two some of this, but you're underage, honey. And Edmund, you're – not drinking these days, I guess." Opal drained the bottle. "So I guess we'd better start hunting for that dang time machine before it goes haywire." She seemed glum since the prospect of actually finding said dang time machine, given that they didn't know what they were looking for, seemed remote, to say the least. "Boy howdy, if anybody had told me that today would be my Grand Finale, I would never have be--"

"Don't give up, Opal," Edmund urged her. "I came back to save the day."

"Like Ryan does," Lily observed. "Ryan saved me. And Greenlee and Kendall." She sighed. "But he couldn't save Jonathan or Braden or Aidan's friend Steve."

"Or me," Edmund added for the record.

Opal put the empty whisky bottle back in the cabinet and hiccoughed. "So where do we go from here, amigos?"

Lily gave that some thought. It was a puzzle and, of course, puzzles were interesting to her. "Whatever the time machine is, it wasn't always where it is now. Edmund brought it, and Edmund wasn't always in Pine Valley. Somebody who was here before might have noticed something new in town. Something that came here when Edmund came here. Who has been in Pine Valley a long time?"

"Phoebe, of course," Opal answered. "And Dr. Joe and Ruth. And Erica."

Lily spoke slowly, working the puzzle through. "But it can't be somebody who is so involved in their career or family that they wouldn't take the time to notice something new and different." She paused meaningfully. "It would have to be somebody who takes the time to study the small things as well as the big things."

"Stuart!" all three said as one.

"Stuart!" Marian was calling at that split second. "Did you see the checkbook? I can't find it anywhere!"

"In the cookie jar," Stuart replied at once. He was examining the Gallery's latest acquisition, a rather quiet still life, not the sort of painting he was generally drawn to, but he knew it would sell quickly. He sighed. Rent must be paid, and Adam was not as generous as he used to be. Pretending to be Adam so that he could get Tad the proof he needed to clear Jamie and Babe from that frame-up had caused a rift that was yet to be healed.

"Don't worry, Darling," Marian would tell him, "Adam has to forgive you. You're the only true friend he has!"

He believed her, of course. Adam would come around, he always came around. But meanwhile, funds had grown tight, especially since Marian hadn't sold a house in months. Stuart wasn't used to worrying about money. He never used to even look at their checkbook. But now he found himself studying it every day.

"Darling, why was it in the cookie jar?"

"I was snacking while I was trying to balance it. Marian, we may have to sell the house."

She had retrieved the checkbook and was wiping off oatmeal cookie crumbs. "We don't own the house, Darling. Adam does. I don't think we're allowed to sell it."

"Phooey," he said with all his heart.

"Well, don't you worry," she soothed. "Stuart, you're an artist. You are sensitive, caring and the sexiest man I've ever been married to. You shouldn't be focusing on the mundane. Something will turn up. Maybe you'll sell that god-awful still life."

Stuart couldn't help but smile. "You think so?"

"Absolutely," she cheerfully lied. "Now tell me. Are we going to bid on anything in the Edmund Grey estate sale?"

Stuart signed. "I've been meaning to go over to Wildwind and talk to Maria about that. But it's all so sad."

"I'll say," Edmund agreed.

"You'll say what?" Lily asked. They were outside of the Gatehouse, and Opal was about to knock on the door.

"I'll say just about anything," Edmund laughed. "But only you and Opal will hear me!"

"I need another drink," Opal grumbled, as she knocked. "Actually, I need another bottle!"

"Opal! Lily!" Marian greeted the two she could see. "How nice to see you both! Looking for a new house?"

"We don't live together," Lily said. "I live with Jack and Erica and Reggie and sometimes Greenlee. Opal lives with her son Petey above the Glamourama."

"That about sums it up," Opal said walking in past Marian. "Can we come in?"

"Of course, Darlings. Stuart, look who's here for some reason!"

Stuart looked up from the checkbook. "Either of you want to buy a painting?"

"Not today," Opal answered. "Stuart, do you believe in ghosts?"

"I believe in everything," Stuart said at once.

Edmund smiled.

"Could I have a drink?" Opal asked.

"Opal, it's barely three o'clock in the afternoon!" Marian said reprovingly.

"Okay then, can I have a cookie?" Opal countered.

Stuart sensed Opal's distress.

"Why did you ask me if I believed in ghosts?"

Lily spoke up. "Funny you should ask!"

_Can Stuart and Marian help Edmund? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6 – "Meanwhile Back at Wildwind"_

Maria tried calling the Glamourama four times that afternoon, but all she got was the machine. What she wanted from Opal was a bit more than a cut and curl, so she didn't go into specifics in her message. "Opal, this is Dr. Maria Santos Grey. Please call me when you get this." She felt more than slightly annoyed that Opal wasn't there. Some way to run a business! Where was she? At the sink, probably. Drowning another client.

"Maria, I'm dry finally. Take back your blow-dryer."

"She even manages to make that sound like a criticism," thought Maria. "Mama, your hair looks lovely," she said.

Isabella grimaced. "Opal puts in too much tin foil. Why do I need highlights anyway? I'm a brunette!"

"I did like your hairdo better before you were recast," Maria offered. She liked her personality better as well. In those days Mama Santos was strict yet somehow vulnerable. Now she was simply strict.

"Well, I wouldn't know about that," Isabella said truthfully. "But I know too much tin foil when I see it!" And saying nothing further, not even "have a nice day" or her more usual "Maria, you have ruined your life and the lives of all you love", Isabella Santos slammed out of Wildwind.

More than anything, Maria felt tired. Tired of her Mother's unyielding disapproval, tired of her children's' unyielding disrespect and tired of Zach's unyielding indifference. "I don't deserve this," she thought for the thousandth time. "I'm a Doctor. A Neurosurgeon yet. I deserve respect and understanding. One mistake, one almost-mistake, doesn't make me a bad wife or mother."

The Estate Sale was set for the next day and the thought of that left her beyond tired. She wasn't in charge of it, of course. That would be Brooke. According to Edmund's will, Brooke was in charge of his Estate (including his Mansion, clothes, plaques, prizes, scrapbooks, mementos, objects d'art, assorted doodads, and everything he had ever written). Also the future of his children. It seemed that with his death, Brooke had gotten everything that had been denied to her when he was alive. Except Edmund, of course. Maria would have pitied her almost as much as she hated her, if she weren't so tired.

The Estate Sale was to be held in Wildwind's Main Ballroom. How ironic it was that the Crystal Ball had taken place in that same Main Ballroom every year that Maria was presumed dead. The Crystal Ball had been Edmund's monument to her, created out of his bottomless grief at her senseless loss in a senseless plane crash. Monies raised at the Crystal Ball had gone directly into The Dr. Maria Santos Grey Foundation. "Edmund never stopped loving me when he thought I was dead," Maria thought now, bitter in spite of herself. "But when I returned, we never quite picked up where we left off." Of course that could have been because of Zach. Or Aidan. Or the bag-boy at Wal-Mart. But it couldn't have been about the bag boy, Edmund had never found out about him. Or the shoe salesman at Lacey's. Or Sam's soccer coach. Or Maddie's piano teacher, Mrs. Tilwiliger. But Opal could change everything, if only she'd call back. The phone was ringing!

It wasn't Opal.

_It wasn't Opal? Then who was it? Whoever it was can they help Edmund, Maria and the rest of Pine Valley? Can anybody help Edmund, Maria and the rest of Pine Valley? Only time will tell! Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter 7 -- "Meanwhile Back at the Gatehouse, Wildwind and Tempo"_

"Please excuse me while I check my messages," Opal was saying as she flipped back the top of her cell and punched in her code. "I just bet that Isabella Santos left me a doozy!"

Stuart and Marian had not as yet recovered from the amazing tale Lily and Opal had revealed to them over the last half hour.

"So the ghost of Edmund is among us?" Marian asked, to make sure.

"Present!" Edmund responded, holding up his ghostly right arm.

Marian simply did not know what to think.

"Well, I believe it!" Stuart volunteered. "Stranger things have happened around here than a ghost looking for his time machine. Remember Erica as a showgirl in Vegas?"

"That was pretty strange," Lily agreed. "I'm glad she quit the chorus line and came home to Pine Valley!"

Stuart grinned. "Erica will always come back. She belongs in Pine Valley."

"So do I," Edmund said. "Lily, please ask Stuart why he thinks I was killed off."

Lily did just that.

"Tell Edmund I can't figure that out either," Stuart replied. "Oh, I can tell him myself, can't I?" He turned to where he imagined Edmund might be standing. "Edmund, I can't figure that out either."

Marian was awash with empathy. Her part had been so reduced in the last years, that she wondered sometimes how long it would be before the Grim Reaper/Assistant Director knocked on the Gatehouse door. "Poor Murdered Darling! At least if they hadn't found your body, there would be a chance of your return!"

Stuart sighed in agreement. "If only the stable had burned to the ground!"

Lily frowned. "But then I would have been killed off!"

"Okay," Stuart amended, "if only Aidan had pulled Lily out and THEN the stable had burned to the ground!"

"With Zach in it," Edmund said with real feeling. "Only HIS dead body should have been found and positively identified."

Opal clicked her cell shut. "Is this a séance or a Writers' Meeting?"

"We were just waiting for you to finish checking your messages, sweetie," Marian explained. "Anybody happen to leave you a message about a time machine?"

Opal grimaced. "My only message was from your slut of a widow," she told Edmund. "Why do you suppose she wants to talk to me?"

"Please don't call Maria a slut," Stuart implored Opal. "We don't exactly know for sure what happened between her and Zach."

"I'm only going by Erica," Opal sniffed.

"And Erica doesn't know the half of it," Edmund reflected. "Opal, please ask Stuart if he has any idea where my time machine is."

Opal repeated Edmund's question, but Stuart honestly had no idea.

"What do you suppose a time machine would look like anyway?"

Edmund wished he could remember, but all he could think about at the moment was Mrs. Tilwiliger.

-------------------------------------------

"Well, Mrs. Tiwiliger, I think under the circumstances, it would be better for Maddie to find another piano teacher. In fact, she may be giving up the piano altogether. In fact, the piano may be sold tomorrow along with everything else. But thanks again for calling. And yes, I agree that we were great while it lasted but it was just one of those things." She held the receiver until she heard Mrs. Tiwiliger hang up. "Just one of those crazy things," she mused, remembering the Cole Porter song Mrs. Tiwiliger had taught her that last night. Sighing, she hung up. Her phone immediately began ringing.

"Dr. Maria Santos Grey, it's Opal Cortland. You left me a message, so I'm calling you back." She sounded miles away from thrilled. "I hope this isn't about your Mama getting all wet."

Maria was tempted to tell Opal her Mama had been BORN all wet, but refrained. The reason for this call was too important. Everything was at stake.

-------------------------------------------

Brooke English was screaming at a framed, autographed photograph of Edmund Grey. She was sitting in the dark, except for the muted light provided by the late afternoon sun filtering through the half-closed blinds of her office windows, bathing everything in a hazy twilight glow. Brooke, however, was not in a hazy twilight glow. Brooke was in a total eclipse of the sun.

"Edmund, you bastard, why can't I hate you? If I had any self-respect I would loathe your memory and spit on your grave." Six empty boxes of Kleenex littered her desk. She opened another box and pulled out a thick wad of tissues. "I wouldn't be crying non-stop, if I had an ounce of self-worth." She blew her nose and threw the wad away into the closest of four already filled-to-the-brim wastepaper baskets.. "Not only did you jilt me at the alter just because I didn't get around to telling you that your wife was still alive, not only did you pretend to be unable to walk when it turns out you could have auditioned for the Rockettes, not only did you tell me that you intended to dump Maria without also telling me that you should have married me instead of her in the first place, but then you went ahead and made me Executrix of your lousy Will. If I had one scintilla of self-esteem, I'd run away to Vegas and become a Showgirl." She wiped the tears from both cheeks and her chin. "So now by law I'm forced to follow your demented wishes and organize a cruddy Estate Sale to get rid of all of your stupid stuff." Absently, she wiped up the puddles that had collected on her desk next to Edmund's photograph. "And I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life mediating between your crummy children and your unfaithful slut of a wife." She pounded the desk with her fists, so hard that Edmund's photograph moved. "And they should have been MY crummy children," she sobbed. "And I never would have been unfaithful to you. You know that, you always knew that." She put Edmund's photograph face-down on her desk. "You always knew that!"

-------------------------------------------

Lily thought Edmund looked unhappy. The corners of his ghostly mouth were turned down, and she knew that was a sure sign in people who were still alive, so she suspected it might hold true for people who weren't still alive.

"Edmund," she ventured, "is anything wrong? I mean, in addition to everything we already know is wrong?"

"A friend of mine is going through a bad time," Edmund replied, "and I need to help her before anything else can happen."

_Can Edmund help Brooke? Will helping Brooke bring him closer to finding the time machine? What does Mrs. Tiwiliger know? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter 8 -- "Meanwhile on Galios IV"_

Zartz was livid.

"What in blue blazes is Edmund doing back in Pine Valley? Did he even bother to notify us of his plans?"

Zift shrugged. "Actors!"

Zetz begged to differ. "Edmund is not an actor! Being an actor was only his cover story. Underneath it all he is as Galiosian as we are! Even if he doesn't look like us."

What the three Galiosians looked like was nothing like Edmund. At that moment, each looked like a bottle of olives. But that wouldn't last long. For an inhabitant of Galios IV, form was as temporary a state of being as the career of a Soap Star.

"I suppose he wants our help," Zift supposed.

"That's what he's saying in his brain wave transmission," Zartz affirmed. "An old girlfriend is in melt down mode and he wants us to help save her. Boring!"

"Boring!" Zift and Zetz agreed in unison, which they often did.

"I only hope he doesn't find the time machine and deactivate it," Zartz hoped. "I've been so looking forward to the collapse of matter into antimatter and the end of all material reality."

--------------------------

"Edmund, do all ghosts get a far-away expression in their eyes from time to time?"

"From time to time," he said. "Especially when they're engaged in impossible acts of telekinesis."

--------------------------

Edmund's autographed photograph, which had lain face-down on Brooke's desk, picked itself up. Brooke didn't notice. Her head was still in her arms, and she was still sobbing.

"Brooke, cut it out," Edmund's photograph said gently. "What good will crying do?"

Brooke slowly raised her head and stared at the photograph. "Say what?"

--------------------------

"Zetz, I need more contrast. I need to see what Brooke is seeing!"

Using his telekinetic powers, which were not inconsiderable, Zetz adjusted the Remote

"And make it louder, for pity's sake! Why did you put on the mute?"

"That crazy woman has been screaming non-stop since the photograph started talking to her. You want me to get an earache?"

Zift laughed. "Olive jars get earaches?"

"You don't think so?"

Zetz turned up the volume, and the sound of Brooke's terrified screeches gave the olive jars aches in ears they did not have.

--------------------------

"Brooke, you've got to calm down," Edmund's photograph was telling his hysterical best friend. "You are breaking eardrums where no eardrums exist."

Momentarily confused by the photograph's last statement, Brooke stopped screaming. Before the moment passed, Edmund's photograph made his appeal.

"Brooke you know that I loved you. You know we are Soul Mates."

"Liar!" Brooke yelled. It was a loud yell, but even a loud yell was a relief from the high pitch wailing that preceded it. "You never loved me! You loved Maria! You married Maria. Twice!"

"I left you everything," Edmund's photograph reminded her. "That counts for something."

Brooke disagreed in the strongest terms. "The hell it does! What does it count for? You remembered me in your lousy Will? What good does that do me? You're dead, Edmund! You're dead! What good does anything do me now?"

"When she puts it that way, it's hard to argue with her," Zift observed to the others, who were watching with him as the scene they helped Edmund create unfolded on their intergalactic interdimensional closed-circuit television.

"He should have changed agencies," Zetz opined. "In show business representation is everything."

"He wasn't killed off because of a bad agent," Zartz pointed out.

"Oh that's right," Zetz remembered. "We did that, didn't we? Do either of you remember why?"

Both of them did.

"It was because of the time machine," Zartz said. "But Edmund doesn't know that. That's why he's in Pine Valley and not here twisting off our bottle tops."

--------------------------

"Opal, it is imperative that we meet tonight."

Opal made a face at her cell phone.

"Maria, the Glamourama closes at 6:00 pm on week-days and it's now 6:30 pm. So my hands are tied. I realize that the Estate Sale is tomorrow and you want to look your best for it, as if that would help anything at this stage, but there's nothing—"

"Opal, forget my hair! I need you to conduct a séance."

That took her by surprise.

"Oh, Maria, I can't. Not tonight!"

How could she could tell Maria that the reason for her unwillingness to throw a séance stemmed from the close encounter of the dead kind in which she was so deeply involved? She knew if Maria wanted a séance it was to contact Edmund. And contacting Edmund only required looking across Stuart and Marian's living room at the forlorn ghost who was sitting next to Lily, a faraway look in his ghostly eyes.

"Opal, it must be tonight! My family is falling apart! My kids hate me so much they practically throw up every time they look at me. Don't you see? I need Edmund to forgive me so they can forgive me, and the only way I can get to Edmund is through you!"

"Oh, deary dear," Opal murmured, taking Maria's plight to heart. "I wonder what Edmund would say if he knew the trouble you're in."

"I'd say good," Edmund said. "I'd say she deserves it!"

--------------------------

"Have you ever noticed that Edmund does not exactly have a forgiving nature?" Zift asked his fellow olive bottles.

"That's pretty typical of Galiosians, I think," Zartz opined.

"Nonetheless, he should forgive Maria," Zetz said. "Zach was no threat to his marriage."

"How about the bag-boy at Wal-Mart, the shoe salesman at Lacey's, Sam's soccer coach, or Mrs. Tilwiliger?" Zift challenged.

"Keeping score, Zift?" Zartz asked archly.

Zift sighed. "What else do I have to do?"

--------------------------

"Brooke, don't tear me up!"

Not following orders, Brooke tore Edmund's photograph in half and then in half again.

"Why shouldn't I tear you up, you heartless bastard? You've torn me up!" She sniffed. "And now I've gone crazy!"

"You're not crazy," the third piece of the four pieces of Edmund's picture corrected her. "You've been under an enormous strain, that's all."

--------------------------

"Opal, you've got to help me, I'm going crazy!"

"Maria, I'd love to help. You know me. I'm always up for a séance, but in this case," she looked over at the glassy-eyed, unforgiving ghost of Edmund Grey. "I don't think the spirit is willing."

"Stuart, why are Opal and Lily staying here so long? It's rude to ask them to leave, but it's getting late and if they don't leave soon I won't be able to pose for your latest nude portrait of me using natural light! Or any light. Remember we couldn't afford to pay the light bill this month."

"Don't worry, Marian. I can always paint you by flashlight." He sighed. "I just wish I knew where Edmund's time machine was!"

"So do we!" said Zift, Zetz and Zartz.

_Will the séance happen? If it does, will it bring Edmund closer to finding the time machine before it's too late? What dastardly plans do the Galioscians have for Pine Valley? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	9. Chapter 9

_Chapter 9 -- "Everybody Deserves a Second Chance"_

"Edmund, will you be faraway for much longer?" Lily asked him because she really wanted to know.

The ghost rubbed his eyes. "Sorry, Lily. Telekinesis is no walk in the park. But I'm done for now."

"Were you able to help your friend?" Lily asked, because she sensed that had been Edmund's purpose.

"Neither in life nor in afterlife," he sighed, still hearing Brooke's heartbroken accusations.

"But you're not giving up are you?" Lily asked.

Edmund shook his head. "I could never give up on Brooke."

"How about Maria?" Opal demanded, clicking her cell phone shut.

"Her I could give up on," Edmund replied. "In fact, I already have."

Opal walked over to the apparition. She could barely make out his features but what she saw did not look happy.

"Edmund, you won't rest easy until you resolve things with Maria," she told him. "Believe you me, I know about these things. An unhappy marriage is a sure recipe for a restless spirit."

"I'm not restless. I'm simply on a quest. My time machine, remember? Matter? Antimatter? Boom?"

"And also you want to know why you were written out," Lily pointed out. She had an excellent memory and it seemed important to her to keep track of all the facts in this case.

"Edmund, Maria is in hell!" Opal cried out. "She wants me to hold a séance in order to contact you so that you can square things for her with your kids!"

Edmund seemed unimpressed by Opal's summary of the situation.

But Stuart was touched.

"Edmund, wherever you are, please help Maria!" he implored. "Everybody deserves a second chance!"

"Stuart is right," Lily breathed. "Everybody deserves a second chance!"

"You bet Stuart is right, honey," Opal chimed in. "How about it Edmund? Will you appear to Maria and your kids and heal the hurt in their hearts?"

Edmund threw up his ghostly hands in defeat. "Okay, Opal, you win! Do your stuff and I will try my level best to heal the hurt in every heart that shows up!"

Opal smiled. "That's more like it! Now where are we gonna hold this shindig?"

It was decided that the séance would take place at Wildwind, where Edmund's spirit would have the strongest link to the temporal plane. Opal called Maria and Maria slipped a note under Maddie's door when her daughter refused to speak with her face-to-face. Next she called her son Sam who was staying with Tad Martin, having recently learned that Tad was his birth mother's uncle.

"Sam, this is your Mother."

"That's your story."

"Sam, I need you to come to Wildwind tonight at midnight."

"Dream on." He blinked. "At midnight?"

"We're having a sit-down séance for six. We're going to contact your Father."

"My Father is Bobby--"

"Stop that, Sam. You know what I'm saying."

"Yes, but do YOU know what you're saying?"

Maria hoped so with all of her hurting heart.

-----------------

"Wow, a séance!" Zift cried out. "What shall we go as?"

"It's a séance, not a costume party," Zartz replied. "But we do have to pick out an acceptable form, I suppose. Unless you'd rather stay home and watch it on TV."

Zetz practically shook off his bottle top. "We gotta be there in person! I wouldn't miss this for the Universe!"

"Why not go?" Zartz smiled. "Perhaps the shock of being contacted by Opal will jar Edmund's memory and the location of the time machine will be revealed."

"Let's bring popcorn!" Zift suggested.

But Zartz had a better idea. "Let's BE popcorn!"

-----------------

Brooke had cried herself to sleep.

Now in a dream she held Edmund and told him all the reasons she hated him. Then she told him all the reasons she loved him. Then she kissed him as if matter was about to crash into anti-matter and destroy all material reality.

"Brooke, things will get better for you. I promise."

"There is no me without you. How can anything get better?"

"I'll tell you tonight at midnight."

_Will Edmund's spirit forgive Maria? Will things get better for Brooke? Is all material reality going to explode as matter collides into antimatter? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	10. Chapter 10

_Chapter 10 -- "Sit-Down Séance For Six Plus Brooke Plus Three Popcorn Kernals"_

Brooke woke up at after 11:00 pm, convinced there was somewhere she was supposed to be.

"Wildwind at midnight," the second torn piece of Edmund's photograph told her.

-----------------------------

Maddie flat-out refused to come out of her room.

"Maddie, I'm not kidding. We're going to talk, even if I need to kick down this damned door!"

"Kick away. Here's hoping you break your foot!"

Abandoning the kicking idea, Maria pounded on the door with her fists. "Maddie! Listen to me! Opal is on her way here! At midnight, she's going to help us contact your Father's spirit!"

Maddie's door opened. "So now not only are you a shameless adulteress, you're a flipped-out shameless adulteress. Is that supposed to make me stop hating you?"

-----------------------------

"Are Stuart and I invited to the séance, Opal?" Marian asked as they finished their late dinner. She had served macaroni and cheese, which was as close to gourmet eating as she and Stuart got these days.

"The more the merrier," Opal replied. "But Lily honey, won't Jack be worried about you? Midnight is awfully late and who knows when this wing-ding is gonna wind up?"

Lily shook her head with authority. "I disappear a lot. My Dad is used to it by now."

"Lily, I think you'd better call him," Edmund's ghost told her. "Dads worry."

"Are you worried about your kids, Edmund?" Lily asked as she fished out her cell phone.

"I was when they were little," he answered her, "but they grew up so fast. Overnight, actually."

"SORAS strikes again," Opal sighed, wondering how old Petey would be the next time she laid eyes on him.

"Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome?" Lily asked, to make sure.

Opal nodded. "It's epidemic in this town."

Marian wiped away a tear. "I wonder how old Colby is."

Stuart hugged her. "I'm sure she's still a little girl"

"Maybe," Opal granted, "but for how long? You know she's gonna be back here and causing trouble before any of us turn around. Look at that Amanda!"

"Edmund, I hope they don't SORAS Sam," Lily said a bit fretfully. "I've seen him around school, and I like him just the way he is!"

"Sam's already been SORASED," Opal told her.

"Oh, good. Then I won't worry."

-----------------------------

Sam was worried. Although he had written off Maria, he wasn't comfortable thinking she had gone nuts.

"Tad, Maria wants me to go to a midnight séance at Wildwind."

Tad nodded. "Could only do you good. I'll keep the porch lights on."

"Um, have you ever gone to a séance?"

"Are you kidding? My Mama is Pine Valley's Miss Cleo!"

"So it's okay? If you were me, you'd go?"

Tad frowned. "Sam, if I were you, I wouldn't be sleeping on a sofa when I have a mansion to go home to."

"Wildwind isn't my home," Sam said sadly. "Not anymore."

-----------------------------

"How do I look?" Zetz asked.

"Like a kernal of popcorn," Zartz and Zift answered in unison. "Just like us."

"Good. That's the look I was going for!"

-----------------------------

Opal was meditating. It was half-past eleven, and they were all about to leave for Wildwind.

"Opal, you don't have to strain yourself," Edmund called to her. "We're already in contact."

"I wanna make sure I don't lose the connection," Opal called back.

"I don't think this connection can be lost," Lily said. "Until he wants to be."

"How'd you get so smart?" Edmund smiled.

-----------------------------

Maria sat alone at the large round table she had brought up from the Rec Room for this occasion. Surrounded by six empty chairs, she awaited her guests. "Opal, please do your stuff tonight. You're my only chance!"

"This is so lame!"" Maddie said, walking into the room.

"Thank you for coming down," Maria thanked her.

The doorbell rang.

It was Sam and he wasn't smiling.

-----------------------------

"I've read about a séance once," Lily told Opal on the drive over to Wildwind. "It was scary. I don't like scary very much."

"Tonight's séance will be completely non-scary," Edmund promised Lily.

He certainly meant that when he said it.

-----------------------------

Brooke rang the doorbell. She began apologizing the second Maria came to the door.

"Maria, forgive me! I don't know what I'm doing here!"

Neither did Maria.

"Brooke, the Estate Sale is tomorrow. Couldn't you wait until then to troop over here and gloat?"

Gloating was the furthest thing from Brooke's distracted mind.

"I'm not here to gloat," she was sure.

Maria was losing whatever patience she had left. "So why are you here? Brooke, it's nearly midnight!"

"Three minutes to," Opal amended. "Maria, I hope you won't mind but I brought some friends with me. A séance needs friendly people in order to make the dearly departed feel at home. Howdy, Brooke. What are you doing here?"

Brooke couldn't imagine.

Marian linked arms with her. "Well, since you are here, Darling why don't we all go in?"

So in they all went.

_Will Edmund's spirit forgive Maria? Will things get better for Brooke? Is all material reality going to explode as matter collides into antimatter? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	11. Chapter 11

_Chapter 11 -- "Before the Séance Begins, a Recap"_

Perhaps before the Séance begins we should recap:

Having been killed off, the ghost of Edmund Grey returns to Pine Valley to find out why he was written out and also to find the time machine that brought him to Pine Valley in the first place. It turns out that, in spite of what all of us thought, Edmund Grey is not an actor. Instead, he is an alien from a planet called Galios IV. He came to Pine Valley in a time machine years ago, but has forgotten where he parked it. While he was living as Edmund Grey he had no memory of his true identity. But now he remembers everything except where (and what) the time machine is. He knows he needs to remember soon because unless the time machine is deactivated, it is going to blow up, vaporizing all material reality. Three Galioscians (Zartz, Zift and Zetz) are closely watching him as he tries to make contact with the still-alive so that they can thwart him in his quest. The Galiosicians don't want Edmund to deactivate the time machine. Edmund doesn't know this of course. He also doesn't know that they were the ones who arranged for him to be written out.

Not knowing that her late husband is back in town, a completely distraught and unglued Maria has prevailed upon Opal to conduct a séance so that Edmund can heal his wounded family. Edmund has found his way to Opal as well, thanks to Lily the only living being aside from Opal who can see and hear him. Thinking that perhaps Stuart would have noticed when a time machine entered Pine Valley (because Stuart notices the small things in life as well as the large), Edmund, Lily and Opal pay him and Marian a visit. Stuart has no idea where the time machine is but he convinces Edmund to consent to the séance so that Maria, Sam and Maddie can find some peace. Edmund agrees, but he also wants his one-time love Brooke English to be there as well. Edmund's will left Brooke in charge of all his earthly possessions. But that isn't what Brooke wants. Brooke wants nothing but the love that has left her life forever. Edmund is anguished, realizing what Brooke is going through. The next day she is to conduct Edmund's Estate Sale at Wildwind. But tonight she is going to a séance.

The Galioscians will be there as well, disguised as popcorn.


	12. Chapter 12

_Chapter 12 -- "Midnight at Wildwind"_

It was a dark and stormy night.

It hadn't been a stormy night when everybody had entered Wildwind, but the clouds gathered quickly once they were inside. As thunder clapped and lightening flashed, a cold wind began to blow and a steady, unforgiving rain began to fall on Pine Valley. Outside Wildwind it was miserable. Inside Wildwind it was worse.

Maria had set up a table and chairs in the middle of what used to be her living room, when her family was still in the business of living. "But that was several centuries ago," she thought. Or at least it felt like several centuries ago. She had toyed with the idea of holding the séance in the Main Ballroom. But how could she? Every square inch of the Main Ballroom was filled with Edmund's possessions, soon to be auctioned off at the Estate Sale later that day. The Estate Sale. "Something to look forward to," she thought sardonically. "Oh, how I love my life!" Outside the wind was howling, as if trying to distract her from the business at hand. No chance of that. The room was dark save for the light of the dozen candles she had lit to heighten the spooky mood. She gazed around the table at her friends and Brooke. Damn Brooke. What was she doing there? This was Maria's last chance to win back her family. Brooke could only mess things up. As usual. And she looked terrible. Edmund's death had aged her unmercifully. "She never stopped loving him," Maria realized. "I wonder when I stopped?"

"Okay!" she addressed the group, so that she could stop thinking. "Opal, how do we get this show on the road?"

"There are eight of us," Sam counted. "I thought you said sit-down séance for six." He glared at Maria. "Another day, another lie," he thought darkly.

"I wasn't counting Opal," Maria explained. "And I didn't know Brooke would be here." She glared at Brooke across the table. "You weren't supposed to be here until later today when you auction my life away," she thought darkly.

"I didn't know I would be here either," Brooke spoke up, still extremely confused. She had no intention of telling them that Edmund's torn photograph had ordered her to be there. Actually, she had every intention of forgetting that had happened. Or at least, trying to forget.

"The more the merrier," Opal soothed, patting Brooke's hand. "Oh, Maria honey, do you have a sponge handy? There a few kernels of… what is that?.. popcorn I guess, on the table. I wouldn't bring it up, but we need a neat and clean temporal plane in order for our dearly beloveds on the other side to properly manifest."

"Opal, I'm already properly manifested," Edmund's ghost reminded her. He was standing right behind her chair. "And I don't mind a little popcorn on the table. Honest I don't."

"Whew!" Zartz thought. "That was a close one!"

The other two popcorn kernels nodded telepathically.

"Is whatever this is ever going to get started?" Maddie whined. "I'm missing 'Leno'!"

"Darling, it will be worth it!" Marian assured her. "We're going to contact your father!"

"My father is Bobby Warner," Sam volunteered, although nobody had asked him.

"Well, we'll try to contact Bobby the NEXT time," Opal said. "Tonight is Edmund's night."

Brooke began to sob uncontrollably.

"Brooke, please don't cry!" Stuart begged her. "We know how awful this is for you! All of us know how much you loved Edmund!"

"Bitch," Maria said under her breath.

"Brooke isn't a witch," Lily pointed out brightly, not hearing exactly what Maria had muttered. "Brooke is a journalist. Some people might call Opal a witch because she can contact the dead, but I don't think she is. I just think she's extremely gifted."

"Thank you, honey," Opal thanked her.

Lily smiled.

"You're so cute," Sam told Lily. "Are you seeing anybody?"

"She's seventeen and her father is Jackson Montgomery, so I'd be careful if I were you," Opal told Sam. "Brooke, cheer up. Things aren't always as gloomy as they seem to be at first sight."

Brooke continued to sob.

"I'm seeing everybody," Lily answered Sam. "My vision is twenty-twenty. Sam, is there somebody you're not able to see? Besides Edmund, I mean. I know you can't see him because he's dead and only Opal and I --"

"Maria, before we begin can I have a glass of water?" Opal interrupted, but not fast enough.

"You think you can see dead people?" an astounded Sam asked Lily. "You think you can see my father?"

Brooke stopped sobbing.

"Yes," Lily admitted. "He's standing there, right behind Opal."

"Opal, is that true?" Maria gasped. "Do you sense Edmund standing behind you?"

"Slut," Edmund said under his breath.

"Maria isn't a nut," Lily laughed, not hearing exactly what Edmund had muttered. "Maria is a neurosurgeon and neurosurgeons aren't allowed to be wacky."

"Lily, can you see Edmund?" Brooke asked, her voice filled to the brim with her heartbreak. "Is Edmund here?"

"Brooke, leave the child alone!" Opal implored her. "I'm the only professional medium on the premises." She cleared her throat. "Shall we begin?"

"This should be good," Zetz told the other Galioscians.

"And if it isn't," Zartz began.

"We'll jazz it up a little," Zift finished.

_Will the séance actually begin already? Could Sam and Lily be cuter? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	13. Chapter 13

_Chapter 13 -- "The Séance Begins"_

Opal was in her element. She had never actually conducted a séance before (or, for that matter, even attended one), but the presence of the dearly departed casually standing behind her made her more than confident that she could pull this off. Everything looked right. The lights in the room were appropriately dim, thanks to the candles Maria had lit. Maria, Sam, Maddie, Brooke, Stuart, Marian and Lily had taken seats around the table, which was round and absolutely perfect for the occasion. Only one thought was bringing Opal down. "I should have brought along Petey's camorder. Or at least a tape recorder. I could've sent it to the 'Exposer' as conclusive proof of the existence of the spirit world. I bet they would have paid a pretty penny. Drat."

"Excuse me, Opal," said Maria, who was fairly calm, considering that her entire future as a mother was riding on what was about to happen around that table. "Did you say something?"

"I bet I could've gotten on Oprah," Opal grumbled, following her own train of thought.

"Opal unless you begin contacting me within the next ten seconds, I'm turning the proceedings over to Lily. Is that okay with you, Lily?"

Lily was too busy smiling at Sam to answer. "Sam, do you already have a girlfriend?"

Sam slowly shook his head and smiled back at her.

"Edmund, I think young love is rearing it's beautiful head," Opal observed.

"WHAT did you say?" Brooke cried out. "Opal, are you talking to Edmund?"

Never being one not to go with the flow and/or ride with the tide, Opal got down to business.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to make contact with the dearly departed Edmund Grey, dear friend of Brooke, Stuart and Marian, beloved father of Sam and Maddie and adored husband of Maria."

Maria was sure she detected a hard note of sarcasm in Opal's twang.

"Please let us join hands."

Lily made a small strangling sound.

"Touching doesn't come easily to Lily," Edmund told Opal.

Lily nodded vigorously.

"Everybody but Lily join hands," Opal amended. "Lily, honey, you just concentrate on Edmund and forget all about Sam."

"I can concentrate on Edmund." Lily smiled shyly at Sam, who smiled not quite as shyly in return.

Opal cleared her throat as everybody around the table but Lily joined hands (which meant that Stuart and Marian had to reach over Lily, who was sitting between them). "Edmund are you among us? If you are among us, please give us some sign."

"Like what?" Edmund asked between his teeth.

"Oh, I dunno. Move the curtains or raise the table or something."

"Can he do any of that stuff?" the popcorn kernel formerly known as Zetz telepathed to his confederates. "Can he have any physical effect on reality?"

"Not without our help," Zartz replied. "He's a spirit now, remember."

"Are we going to help him?" Zift asked.

"Only when it suits us," Zartz replied.

"We helped him contact Brooke," Zift reminded them.

"Yes, but we only did that for laughs," Zetz recalled.

The curtains and table stayed in place.

"Opal, Darling," Marian spoke up, trying to help out, "I saw this movie once where the dead hero entered the Medium's body and spoke through her, using her voice."

"That sounds like fun," Edmund said dryly.

"Look, Edmund, I'm not Whoopie Goldberg and you're certainly not Patrick Swayze! Now make that dang curtain move!"

But the dang curtain stayed motionless while outside the storm intensified. Lightening flashed into the semi-darkened room, making Lily jump. Rain began pounding the windows as the wind gusted.

"Show time!" Zartz announced to the other kernels.

Edmund Grey began to materialize.

_How will Maria and Brooke react to the newly materialized Edmund? Will they help him find the time machine before all material reality goes BOOM? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	14. Chapter 14

_Chapter 14 -- "The Séance Continues"_

The spirit of Edmund Grey stood directly in back of Opal in living color, looking hale and hearty, a half-smile playing on his now not at all ghostly face.

Brooke fainted.

"Edmund!" Maria gasped.

"Glory be!" Opal exulted. "I knew I could do it!"

"Why, it's Edmund!" Stuart said for them all. "Glad to see you!"

"Hello, Edmund," Marian managed. "It's been a long time."

"Daddy!" Maddie cried out, rising from her chair in a mixture of shock and joy.

"Dad!" Sam gasped, at last taking his eyes off of Lily.

"Edmund!" Maria moaned.

"Edmund, you're here!" Lily laughed. "I mean, you were always here, but now everybody can see you! I'm so glad! Now we can start finding out where the time machine is before it's too late! Do you think anybody here knows anything about it?"

"Personally, I love that kid," Zartz opined to his fellow popcorn kernels. "I'm almost gonna hate seeing her disintegrate along with everything else when the time machine blows."

"Time machine?" Sam asked. "Lily, what are you talking about?"

Before Lily could fill him in, Brooke regained consciousness and started screaming.

Everybody covered their ears except the popcorn kernels, who wished they had ears to cover.

"Brooke, it's me," Edmund told her, walking over. "You're not dreaming. You're not crazy. I'm real. Everyone can see me."

"And you can walk now!" Stuart observed.

"I've been able to walk for some time," Edmund admitted. "That was a secret I kept from too many of my friends."

"Edmund!" Maria groaned.

"How?" Brooke breathed.

"Through the wonders of Galioscian technology," Zetz explained, although of course nobody could hear him except Zift, Zartz and Edmund.

"How doesn't matter," Edmund told her. "We have to concentrate on why."

"We do?" Brooke asked hollowly, knowing the only thing she could concentrate on was Edmund, not ten inches away from her, as virile and handsome as ever he was. She loved him completely.

Suddenly remembering the reason for the séance, Maria collected herself. "Edmund, I need to ask your forgiveness."

"Go screw that soccer coach again," Edmund replied mildly. "Then ask the Wal-Mart bag boy to forgive you."

"Edmund!" Maria gasped.

"Edmund, remember what we decided about second chances," Stuart reminded him gently.

"By any chance would that Wal-Mart bag boy be Arnie?" Marian asked Maria.

"No, Brad," Maria replied as steadily as she could. "Arnie is his grandfather."

"Slut!" Sam and Maddie called Maria in unison.

"Edmund, I think Maria's plea for your forgiveness is heartfelt," Opal said against her better judgment.

"For the children," Maria said huskily. "I need the children's respect. Edmund, we need to heal as a family."

Edmund was not won over. "Right," he said bitterly, "You need to heal as a family so you can move on. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Whom do you plan to move onto, Maria? The Lacy's shoe salesman?"

"All of us need to heal," Brooke said brokenly. "All of us need to move on." But she knew that doing either was impossible for her. She wondered if he knew that as well.

"Brooke, I was such a fool to let you go," he told her now, meaning it.

"I may gag," Zetz revealed.

"Brooke, do you have any idea where Edmund hid the time machine?" Lily asked as a point of information.

"You were a fool to let me go?" Brooke echoed. "NOW you tell me?" She blinked. "What time machine?"

"The time machine Edmund used to get here from the future. He's forgotten where he put it and what it actually looks like. We have to find it because it's set to bring matter together with antimatter. Does everybody know what happens when matter meets anti-matter?"

"Boom?" Sam guessed, remembering what he'd read on the subject in comic books.

"Daddy, you never told me about a time machine!" Maddie whined.

"I didn't remember it," Edmund replied truthfully. "At least not for a long, long time. But during my last days on the Show, in those last wretched episodes –"

"Edmund, cut to the chase!" Maria broke in. "Can I or can't I have your forgiveness?"

"Forgive her, Edmund," Opal pleaded. "For old times sake!"

Edmund thought it over.

"Get stuffed," he told Maria.

"Also, Edmund's come back to find out why he was dropped from the Show. I don't really understand what that means, but finding out seems extremely important to him."

"He'd kill us if he ever found out the truth," Zift predicted.

"We had no choice," Zartz reminded them. "He was beginning to remember the time machine. If we hadn't had him killed off, he'd have found it by now. And that would have ruined everything."

"You have your heart set on the destruction of all material reality, haven't you, Zartz?" Zift had to ask.

"Yes," Zartz answered simply.

"Edmund, I was your wife!" Maria appealed to him. "I am the Mother of your children. Can't you find it in your soul to forgive me? What can I say, what can I do to redeem myself in your eyes?"

"You can help us find the time machine!" Lily suggested before Edmund could reject his widow's plea.

"She could?" Stuart had to ask. "How could she do that?"

Luckily, Lily had an idea.

"Maria could show us the inventory from the Estate Sale. Maybe one of Edmund's possessions is really the time machine!"

Marian couldn't agree. "Lily, I'm sure Maria or Brooke or somebody would have noticed if something as big as a time machine were in Wildwind's Main Ballroom waiting to be auctioned off!"

But Lily stuck to her guns. "I've been thinking about that. Nobody said the time machine has to be big. Maybe it's the size of a paperclip! Or –"

"A Pulitzer Prize!" chorused Edmund and Brooke.

_What happens next? Could Edmund's Pulitzer Prize really be the time machine? Will Edmund find it in his heart to forgive Maria? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	15. Chapter 15

_Chapter 15 -- "The Séance Is Just About Over"_

The Inventory of Edmund Grey's Estate Sale comprised 142 typed pages. Single-spaced.

"You had a lot of stuff, Edmund," Stuart observed, scanning the copy he had been given by an extremely co-operative Maria. "What makes you think the time machine is the Pulitzer Prize?"

"It makes so much sense," Brooke answered for Edmund. "We never really knew what he won it for. It was simply always there for as long as I knew him."

"I don't know why I didn't realize this before," Edmund agreed. "It makes so much sense."

"You put that idea in their heads, didn't you Zartz?" Zetz asked, just to make sure.

The popcorn kernel nodded. "How else would it ever get there? Those two couldn't come with an idea if the future of the universe depended on it. And it does."

"What did Edmund win the Pulitzer Prize for?" Zift had to ask.

Zartz sighed. "Nothing. There is no Pulitzer Prize. This is a Soap Opera. None of it is real."

"But the time machine is real," Zift amended.

"Oh, yes," Zartz agreed. "The time machine is real."

"Well, I think we should go over the Inventory anyway, just in case," Lily opined prudently.

"Alright," Brooke said, "but it's a waste of time. It's the Pulitzer Prize. It makes so much sense."

"Why do you two keep saying that?" Lily asked.

"Saying what?" Edmund asked.

"You keep saying it makes so much sense. Why are you using those exact words over and over?"

"Because those are the key words I put in their minds when I planted the Pulitzer Prize is really the time machine idea," Zartz laughed. "They won't know what she's talking about."

"Lily, I don't know what you're talking about," Brooke told her. "But I'm willing to go through the Inventory just in case. We mustn't miss anything."

Edmund wondered how he could ever have let Brooke out of his life as he watched her turning pages, meticulously going over the sum and substance of all his worldly goods. She was beyond beautiful, beyond brilliant, and she was in love with him. What had made him throw all of that away?

"Does anybody want coffee?" Maria asked them as she unsuccessfully stifled a yawn. "It's gonna be a long night."

"It's already been a long night," Lily corrected her. "It's almost dawn."

And, in truth, light was beginning to flicker through the drawn curtains. The storm appeared to be over.

"I'm up to the "T"s," Marian reported. "Maria, Edmund owned 17 trench coats?"

"Black trench coats," Maria added. "He owned 17 black trench coats."

"Let's hear it for Mr. Imagination!" Zetz exclaimed, although he couldn't be heard except by his fellow Galioscians.

"Dad, why did you own 17 black trench coats?" Sam asked him.

Edmund shrugged. "It made so much sense."

Brooke flipped another page. "I don't see anything here that could possibly be a time machine. Do you, Edmund?"

He shook his head. "Nah. I think we have to go with the Pulitzer Prize. It makes so much –"

"There you go again!" Lily cried out. "You keep saying those words! Why?"

"Look, Lily, I'm not exactly used to coming up with my own dialogue," Edmund replied. "I'm doing the best that I can!"

"Well, for a spirit, Edmund, in my opinion you are going above and beyond. You've forgiven Maria. you've probably found the time machine…"

"I haven't forgiven Maria," Edmund made clear.

"That was the deal," Maria said steadily. "I'd get you the Inventory list, if you'd forgive me so the kids and I can move on with our lives!"

"It makes so much sense," Brooke said.

"There you go again!" Lily cried out.

"But I agreed to that before I realized the Pulitzer Prize is probably the time machine. It makes so much sense."

Lily looked around the table to see if anybody else had noticed the repetition. No one had.

"Edmund, a deal is a deal," Maria countered.

"Like love, honor and cherish till death do us part?" Edmund asked archly. "Forsaking all others?"

"He's got you there, Mom," Maddie said.

A growling noise came from the back of Maria's throat.

"In sickness and in health," Edmund continued, enjoying himself too much.

"What sickness?" Maria demanded, enraged. "You were faking the paralysis, you bastard!"

"She has a point there," Stuart said. "And, Edmund, even before you promised to forgive her in exchange for the Inventory list, you were going to give her a second chance. Remember?"

Edmund remembered. "Okay. Okay. You're forgiven. Call up Mrs. Tilwiliger and tell her you can move on with your life."

"You are SO no good," Maria told him meaningfully.

"What does he mean, Mom?" Sam and Maddie asked in unison. "Why would Mrs. Tiwiliger care?"

"Aren't they all adorable?" Zift asked.

"You were never any good," Maria continued. "You never loved me."

Brooke couldn't let that go by. "Oh, Maria! You're wrong! Edmund adored you! You're the reason he kept leaving me! I could never take your place! And believe me, I tried!"

"This is good," Zetz said. "We should've brought popcorn."

Zartz laughed. "We ARE popcorn!"

"Dad, why don't we go into the Main Ballroom and take a look around?" Sam suggested. "That's where your Pulitzer Prize is."

"You're selling my Pulitzer?" Edmund asked Maria, sounding heartbroken at the thought.

"Yes, she is," Lily answered, "there it is under 'P'. Page 75."

"How could you sell my Pulitzer?"

Maria smiled. "It makes so much sense."

_Can Edmund ever forgive Maria? Will it matter if all material reality goes BOOM? What are the Galioscians planning? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	16. Chapter 16

_Chapter 16 – "This Is the Way the Séance Ends"_

"Thank you for keeping your promise, Edmund," Lily said to him, smiling.

Edmund, still feeling injured after learning his Pulitzer Prize, was part of the Estate Sale, nevertheless returned Lily's smile.

"Which promise was that, honey?" he asked her.

"You said the séance wouldn't be scary," she reminded him, "and it hasn't been!"

"She's right!" Zift realized. "No wonder I'm bored!"

"It's been interesting and productive," Lily added. "We think we know what the time machine is and where it is. Edmund, if we go looking for it in the Main Ballroom away from the séance table, will you stay as clear as you are now, or will you fade back?"

He had no idea.

"Opal, can you keep Edmund in focus?" Brooke asked her quickly because it mattered to her.

She had no idea.

"You can keep me in focus, can't you guys?" Edmund asked the popcorn kernels. He had a sneaking suspicion about the true source of the psychic power at that table.

"We'll do our best," Zartz telepathed. "After we have some fun of course."

Briefly, Edmund wondered what his fellow aliens considered fun. Then the candles went out. Then the table began shaking. Then it turned over. The curtains danced at the windows as the storm returned with an unrestrained fury that was more than frightening. Winds began gusting inside the room. Over the moans of the wind voices sang "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in three-part harmony.

"Opal, what's happening?" Maria screamed.

"How should I know?" Opal screamed back. "Edmund, what's happening?"

"Make it stop, Edmund!" Lily implored. "Please make it stop!"

"Daddy!" Maddie yelled, completely terrified.

"Stuart, hold me!" Marian pleaded. "

"Don't worry, Marian!" Stuart comforted her. "I won't let anything hurt you!"

"Lily, don't be scared!" Sam called to her. "There's nothing to be scared of! I'm pretty sure none of this is real!"

Pictures started flying off the walls, crashing into furniture. They could hear cupboards clattering open in the kitchen.

"What's going on in there?" Brooke breathed, as they heard cups and plates falling out of cabinets and drawers opening and knives come flying out of them.

"Sam, we should be scared!" Lily told him in no uncertain terms, as a flock of knives flew into the living room and hung in a circle directly over their heads.

"Cut it out, guys!" Edmund instructed the kernels.

"Would you like to rephrase that?" Zetz giggled, as a butcher knife came within a whisper of Maria's heart.

"We're all gonna die!" Opal predicted with an hysterical shrillness.

"Not all of us," Lily managed to gasp as the wind fashioned her long blonde hair into a noose. "Edmund is already dead – Edmund, help me!"

"Daddy! Make it stop! Mommy, I'm sorry! I forgive you!"

"Maddie, I love you! Sam, I love you! Edmund, I'm sorry!"

"Lily, don't move!"

"Stuart, help me!"

"Marian, close your eyes! Imagine we're in a garden surrounded by heather!"

The circle of knives spun crazily overhead.

"Edmund, I will love you for all of eternity!" Brooke said for the record as six knives arranged themselves around her neck like a deadly necklace of stainless steel. "For always and ever, for as long as long is!"

"This is the way the word ends," Galioscian voices misquoted the poet, T.S. Eliot. "This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a whimper but a BOOM!"

A blinding flash of lightening incinerated the entire room and everybody in it.

_Could this be the end of Edmund and his friends? Has matter collapsed into antimatter? Will Opal ever hold another séance? What about the Estate Sale? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	17. Chapter 17

_Chapter 17 – "Erica Goes to the Estate Sale"_

Erica Kane greeted the morning with a smile. For once, her life was in apple pie order: Jack was following her orders about their upcoming wedding; Bianca and Miranda were already back from Paris so that could they attend; Ryan wasn't in the hospital for a change; Kendall's heart wasn't broken for a change; Greenlee seemed happy as Mrs. Lavery, which wouldn't have mattered at all to her except that Greenlee was Jack's surprise daughter, and although she had thoroughly ruined Erica and Jack's last wedding, she was family, and family mattered to Erica. Of course there were clouds in her sky. When weren't there clouds? Dimitri's brother Edmund had been murdered by Ryan's brother, Jonathan. Poor Edmund. They hadn't always seen eye to eye, but certainly he had deserved better than to wind up in a coffin with a bomb underneath it. And his life had touched so many. His wife, Maria. His awful children, Sam and Maddie. (Once upon a time she had kidnapped Maddie and planned to raise her a her own. Another perfect plan shot to hell.) And there was Brooke English, of course. Poor Brooke. She'd never get Edmund now!

Today was the Estate Sale, wasn't it? Poor Brooke would be auctioning off all that was left of the love of her life, while his grieving widow stood by gaining from all the sympathy she so richly did NOT deserve. Erica never liked Maria. Not the first time around, before she was presumed dead for five years, and not the second time around, when she found her way back to Pine Valley with no memory and a new name. "And a new boyfriend," Erica recalled. "The delicious Aidan Devane. I wonder if he'll be at the Sale today. Maybe Brooke will be auctioning off Maria!"

"Gotta call Myrtle and Opal," Erica decided. "This is not to be missed!"

Myrtle was home and quickly agreed to being picked up by Erica.

"So sad," she told her on the phone. "So young. And such a rotten funeral!"

"I'll be by in half an hour. I've been trying to phone Opal but nobody answers. I don't know if she was planning to go. I wonder where she could be!"

On her way out, Jack stopped her. He looked frantic.

"Erica, Lily didn't come home last night! I'm frantic!"

Erica took the news in her stride. "Jack, Lily has wandered off before. She always finds her way back home. Have you called Derek?"

"Yes. He's put out the usual APB."

"Well, I'm sure that will do it. Have you called Aidan?"

"Yes, he and Reggie are out looking for her now. I'm leaving to join them. Erica, will you stay here in case she calls?"

Erica frowned. "Oh, Jackson, I wish I could! But there's somewhere else I absolutely have to be! You understand!"

_Will Jack understand? Will Erica find Wildwind in ashes? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	18. Chapter 18

_Chapter 18 – "The Trigger"_

At a little before 11:00 a.m., the ghosts of Edmund Grey, Brooke English, Opal Courtland, Maria Santos Grey, Sam Grey, Maddie Grey, Stuart Chandler, Marian Chandler and Lily Montgomery wandered out of the charred living room of Wildwind and into the Main Ballroom, where the Estate Sale was to begin at noon.

"Wow, we overslept!" Stuart exclaimed.

"Well, Darling, we went through a great deal at the séance," Marian reasoned. "Although I don't remember how it actually ended." She looked at the others and realized with mounting horror that she could look right through them. "Does anybody remember how it ended?"

Lily remembered. "We were all burned to a crisp," she sad sadly. "Our bodies were incinerated."

"Nonsense!" Opal laughed, a little too loudly, "that would mean that we're dead!"

"That's what it would mean all right," Brooke agreed, looking at her hands and seeing through them to the Main Ballroom's lacquered floor.

"I'll kill them," Edmund promised, referring of course to his fellow aliens. He himself was not looking nearly as solid as he had looked during the séance. Still everybody in the room could see him now, since all of them were as dead as he was.

"Kill who?" Maria asked mechanically. "I mean whom?"

"Zartz, Zift and Zetz," Edmund listed matter-of-factly.

"Who in baby blue blazes are Zartz, Zift and Zetz?" Opal demanded.

Edmund's ghostly head ached. There was no way to keep it from them. The whole truth had to be told. They deserved that much.

"They are Alien Invaders from a planet called Galios IV." He took a deep breath and told them the rest of it. "My home."

"Daddy, what are you talking about?" Maddie screeched. "Pine Valley is your home!"

"Well, it WAS your home," Maria amended, "before you got yourself murdered."

"You make it sound like I volunteered!" Edmund said between his teeth.

"You're from another planet?" Brooke asked him pointblank.

"Why the surprise, Brooke?" Maria asked sweetly. "You always thought Edmund was out of this world!"

"Edmund, you told us you came from the future in a time machine!" a bewildered Brooke cried out.

"I did come from the future in a time machine," Edmund replied. "I also came from Galios IV."

"That could be possible," Lily told them. "Just because Edmund's from the future, doesn't mean that he isn't an Alien Invader."

"I'm crazy about that kid," one of Edmund's black trench coats revealed. "I'm almost sorry we murdered her!" The trench coats hung neatly from a metal rack standing directly in front of the ghosts. There were 20 of them. There used to 17.

"That trench coat just said something," Sam pointed out, in case the others had failed to notice.

"What gives, Edmund?" Opal demanded.

Edmund scowled. "Allow me to introduce you all to the delegation from Galios IV, presently in trench coat form!"

Three of Edmund's trench coats jumped off the rack, flicked their collars in acknowledgment and bowed deeply.

"Galiosians are shapeshifters," Edmund explained. "We can change form at will."

"Um, Edmund," Brooke had to ask, "what is your real, actual and true form?"

"Better you shouldn't know," the left-most trench coat replied.

"Zartz, I am going to destroy you," Edmund told it calmly.

"You and what army?" Zartz inquired.

"Murdering us wasn't very friendly," Lily spoke up. "It was extremely unfriendly."

"Nothing personal, kid," the trench coat in the middle said. "It's what Galioscians do."

Edmund exploded. "No, it isn't, you deranged intergalactic misfits! It's what YOU do! How dare you slaughter a room full of people to have some fun? Isn't that what you told me you were going to do? Have some fun?"

"It was more than some fun," Zift corrected him stiffly. "It was an enormous amount of fun!"

"Edmund, when did you get so square?" the right-most trench coat asked mournfully.

"Those coats murdered us?" Marian gasped.

"Sure did!" the trench coats answered.

Opal had heard enough. "I'm gonna rip you monsters apart seam by seam!" she screamed, fists clenched, diving on top of them.

But she only passed harmlessly through them on her way to the floor. Not a thread was touched.

"It won't do any good, Opal," Edmund told her sadly. "Spirits can have no physical effect on reality."

"Then how are you going to destroy them?" Stuart whispered to Edmund.

"He isn't," Zartz answered. "He's going to stand by helplessly while matter crashes into antimatter."

"Dad, there's the Pulitzer!" Sam cried out, his gaze falling on a table not three feet away from them.

"But we can't touch it," Brooke realized. "We can't touch anything anymore!"

"It doesn't matter, Brooke," Edmund said. "The Pulitzer isn't the time machine. They planted that idea in our heads to get us off the trail until they had a chance to exterminate everyone who could help me find the time machine."

"Bastards!" Maria screamed with all her heart.

"Sticks and stones," Zartz shot back. "How'd you guess, Edmund?"

Edmund smiled. "I could hear you three geniuses plotting. You think you're the only telepaths in town?"

The trench coats stopped breathing.

"And that's not the only thing I heard, guys." Edmund turned to Brooke. "Brooke, these sons of bitches are responsible for my getting killed off the Show!"

"No!" Brooke gasped.

"I heard them admit it at the séance," Edmund said.

"They were at the séance?" Stuart asked.

"They were the popcorn kernels on the table," Edmund revealed.

"That was a good disguise!" Lily marveled. "This is a good disguise too," she went on. "How do you come up with all these good disguises?"

"It's what we do," Zartz said simply, touched, in spite of himself by Lily's guileless admiration.

"They planted that idea about the Pulitzer?" Brooke asked, beginning to take it all in.

"They don't know where the time machine is either," Edmund said. "And I still don't remember!"

"We're dead?" Maria asked, beginning to take it all in.

Zetz wished that trench coats could grin. "We do, however, know how to detonate it, wherever and whatever it is!"

"No you don't," Edmund was sure. "I would have heard you three talking about it."

"You can only hear what we say when we're on the same planet," Zift said. "The last time we talked about the time machine detonation trigger we were home." He laughed wickedly. "And you weren't!"

"I programmed that time machine. I built in a detonation option. How would you three know what the trigger is?"

"You kept a diary," Zetz explained. "You wrote about the trigger in your last entry before becoming Edmund Grey and beginning to forget your true identity and mission."

"You had a mission?" all the other ghosts asked Edmund.

"It's news to me," Edmund said honestly.

"Edmund do you remember what the trigger is?" Brooke asked him, hopeful in spite of herself.

"No," Edmund replied miserably.

"Actually, you can tell us about the trigger," Lily pointed out carefully to the trench coats. "There's nothing we can do now to stop you. We're only ghosts now. We can't have any physical effect on reality, so you can tell us what will make all material reality go BOOM. And we can't do anything to make it not happen."

"We're ghosts?" Marian asked Stuart, beginning to take it all in.

The Galioscians were dying to tell Edmund what the detonation trigger was. And so they did.

"ERICA KANE'S REAL AGE!"

_Can Edmund and his friends stop the destruction of all material reality? How can the Estate Sale go on without Brooke and Maria? Will we find out Erica Kane's real age? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! I would be grateful for your review!_


	19. Chapter 19

_Chapter 19 – "Erica, How Old Are You?"_

Erica and Myrtle drove up to Wildwind's main gate, completely unaware of the bizarre afternoon that lay before them.

"It's still early," Erica was saying, "the Estate Sale won't start for half an hour. We'll probably be the first ones there."

"But dollars to donuts we won't be the last!" Myrtle said, looking back at the caravan of cars that was following them. "Looks like Edmund's Estate Sale is a hit!"

"Your buddies are full of it!" Opal was telling Edmund in no uncertain terms. "Nobody but nobody knows Erica's real age." She frowned. "How are you supposed to have wheedled it out of her? Some Alien Voodoo?"

"I have no idea," Edmund said, sensing with a sinking heart that they were all about to learn more about Alien Voodoo first-hand.

"What I don't understand," Lily said, "is why a trigger was necessary. If the time machine is set to explode, why would there be a trigger?"

"It was a failsafe device," Edmund recalled, the memory coming back to him unexpectedly. "Just in case somebody turned off the machine. The keyword restarts and accelerates the countdown by remote control. Once the Galioscians know the trigger, they won't need to find the time machine. They'll pull the trigger and matter and antimatter will crash into each other."

"How will they pull the trigger?" Stuart asked.

Edmund knew. "All they have to do is repeat Erica's real age three times."

"So why haven't they done it?" Maria exploded. "Why spend all this time torturing us if all it takes to make everything go BOOM is the keyword they already know?"

"They don't know it," Edmund reasoned. "They know what it is. It's Erica's real age. I must have written that much in my diary. But they can't know the actual number, or else they would have used it already."

"Edmund, you're remembering things!" Brooke exclaimed.

"Some things," Edmund agreed. "But not what or where the time machine is. And not Erica's real age."

Opal could contain herself no longer. "Why in the wide weird world was that contraption set to blow up in the first place? Why travel in a time machine that's a time bomb?"

To his utter amazement, Edmund knew the answer. "It was supposed to explode. That was my mission in Pine Valley!"

None of them could believe their ears. "Edmund, Darling, you came here to destroy all material reality?" Marian asked to make sure.

"I was supposed to," Edmund knew. "I meant to. That was the plan." He looked at Brooke. "But then something happened."

"You met me!" Maria prompted him.

"Not exactly," Edmund said, his gaze never leaving Brooke.

"Why would the Galioscians want to destroy everything?" Stuart asked, completely baffled.

"That isn't what ALL Galioscians want," Edmund was sure. "Just this crew." He frowned. "And me. I was one of them." He wrinkled his ghostly brow. "But that changed. Everything changed."

"When you met me!" Maria reprompted him.

"Give it up, Mom," Maddie urged.

Erica and Myrtle were driving past the Mausoleum, on their way to the Main House.

"I still haven't been able to get in touch with Opal," Erica was saying.

"Maybe we'll see her there," Myrtle hoped.

"How do you think these critters plan to find out Erica's real age?" Opal was asking the other ghosts.

"We'll ask her," Zetz informed them all. He was in the form of Maria Santos Grey.

"You'll ask her?" the real Maria's ghost asked tonelessly.

"Erica will tell us," Zift replied. He was in the form of Brooke English.

"Why would Erica ever tell you her age?" the real Brooke's ghost asked tonelessly.

"She won't have a choice, anymore than the Writers had a choice when we ordered them to kill off Edmund," Zartz explained. He was in the form of Lily Montgomery. "We're simply irresistible."

"Why do you look like Brooke, Maria and me?" the real Lily's ghost confronted them.

"How could there be an Estate Sale without Maria and Brooke?" Zift-Brooke and Zetz-Maria answered together. "And we need there to be an Estate Sale so we can find out the trigger and end all of this nonsense!"

"By 'all of this nonsense', you mean all material reality?" Stuart checked.

"Damn straight," the Galioscians answered together.

"But why do you look like me?" Lily asked Zartz-Lily. "There can be an Estate Sale without me."

"Well, I had to pick somebody to be," Zartz-Lily told her, "and everyone knows I like you the best!"

"You shut up!" Sam burst out just as Erica rang the front doorbell.

"He's jealous of me!" Zartz-Lily exclaimed. "Lily, I think the boy is in love!"

If ghosts could blush, Sam would have.

"Thank you, Sam," Lily thanked him. "When all of this is over, maybe you and I can be boyfriend and girlfriend."

Zetz-Maria laughed out loud. "When all of this is over, Lily, you and Sam will be cosmic dust!"

The bell rang again. Ghosts and Galioscians scrambled out of the Main Ballroom.

"You'll never pull this off, guys," Edmund warned.

"You're whistling in the dark, Ziggy," Zift-Brooke told him, going to the door

"Ziggy?" the other ghosts hooted.

"My real name," Edmund admitted.

"I like it," Brooke decided. "But I like Edmund better!"

They exchanged smiles.

"Brooke!" Erica greeted Zift-Brooke. "How nice! I was expecting Maria to open the door!"

"I got there first," Zift-Brooke said.

"You always got there first," Erica said sympathetically. "A lot of good it did you!"

It was nearly noon, and others had begun to arrive. One by one and two by two, Pine Valley's leading citizens walked through Wildwind's front door, stopped to console Zetz-Maria and Zift-Brooke, and then drifted into the Main Ballroom.

"Oh me, oh my," Opal marveled at the passing parade. "You sure drew the A-List, Edmund!"

"Vultures," Maria commented, staring at the line of her friends and neighbors as they passed.

"Myrtle, why don't you go inside the Main Ballroom and sit down while I have a private word with Erica," Zetz-Maria suggested, anxious to get Erica alone.

"See you inside," Myrtle complied, only mildly insulted.

"Erica, before we go in, there's something I must know," Zetz-Maria told her.

"You made all the wrong choices," Erica replied, guessing incorrectly that Maria wanted to know why her life had come to this.

"No, that's not what Maria means," Zift-Brooke clarified.

"Shouldn't we be going in?" Erica asked, noticing Adam, Di(xie) and JR entering the Main Ballroom, followed closely by Babe, Jamie and Amanda.

"I miss Uncle Stuart," JR was confiding to Adam at that moment. "Has he been written out?"

"Stuart, Darling, they're talking about you!" Marian called over to him.

"Not to my knowledge," Adam replied stiffly. His latest falling out with his twin was still a sore point. "He shouldn't have sided with Tad over us! Without my help, I bet he and that overage hussy he married have gone broke by now."

"Adam, you never change!" Di(xie) exclaimed. "Stuart is your brother! And he loves you more than anything!"

"Lady, exactly who ARE you?" Adam asked archly.

"Holding a grudge is what Adam does best," Stuart observed sadly.

"Mama should be here any second," Babe was saying, under the impression that anyone cared. "Tad was supposed to pick her up, but his nephew Sam never came home last night and they're out with Derick, Jackson, Reggie and Aidan looking high and low. Lily never came home either, so they think they're together somewhere."

At that moment Babe spied Zartz-Lily.

"Well, I guess they're wrong! Lily, I think you'd better call home! Your Dad is crazy-worried! Where's Sam?"

"Present," Sam said miserably, knowing nobody alive could hear him.

"I should have called my Dad like Edmund told me to," Lily sighed. "I didn't mean for him to get crazy-worried."

"I should have called my Dad," Zartz-Lily sighed, knowing an appropriate line when he heard one. "I didn't mean for him to get crazy-worried."

"Lily, don't you dare talk to that babynapping tramp!" Erica instructed Zartz-Lily.

"That would be me," Babe told Zartz-Lily.

"Babydoll," Krystal called out as she led Jackson, Reggie, Aidan, Derrick and Tad through the front door, "don't you dare put yourself down on account of that played-out past-her-prime prima donna!"

Erica stiffened. "I beg your pardon?"

"Erica," Zift-Brooke said, trying to regain her attention, "before we go in, I need you to tell me how old you are."

Erica stiffened some more. "I beg your pardon?"

Ryan and Greenlee had come in and made their way to Zetz-Maria to offer their sympathy.

"How are the kids holding up?" Greenlee asked, not seeing them.

"They're dead," Zetz-Maria answered truthfully. "Excuse me, Greenlee. Erica, how old are you?"

Erica twitched.

"Dead tired!" Zift Brooke amended at once. "Maria let them sleep in. Erica, how old are you?"

Erica squinted

"Galioscians are good liars," Lily said to Sam.

"Tell me about it," Sam said, looking at Edmund. "Ziggy had me fooled for years!"

Meanwhile Jack had made his way through the crowd and reached Zartz-Lily.

"Lily, where have you been all night?" he demanded, grabbing her into a frantic paternal embrace. "Why didn't you call me?"

"I was here all night," Zartz-Lily answered uneasily. "I'm sorry, I should have called. I don't like touching, remember? I don't like hugging either. Erica, how old are you?"

Erica swayed.

"Girlfriend, keep your lips zipped!" Opal called to her even though she knew her best friend couldn't hear her. Then an idea struck her. "Edmund, I mean Ziggy, you're a Galioscian! Can't you do the same Voodoo to Erica that your friends are doing? Only in an opposite direction, if you get my drift?"

"They're not my friends anymore," Edmund made clear. "And please don't call me Ziggy!"

"Edmund, can you make Erica keep quiet about her age?" Lily asked for them all.

"I'm not as Galioscian as I used to be," Edmund explained. "But I'll do my best!"

"I tried calling here, but Maria, your phone is disconnected!" Jack was continuing, after releasing Zartz-Lily from his paternal embrace.

"My phone is disconnected?" Zetz-Maria asked, not really caring. "Erica, how old are you?"

Erica swayed again.

"Stay strong, Erica!" Edmund shouted, straining with every bit of his being to keep her from spilling the beans. "Resist them!"

"Erica, how old are you?" Zartz-Lily, Zift-Brooke and Zetz-Maria asked in unison.

"Erica, don't tell!" Edmund shouted.

Erica's eyes crossed.

"Mother, are you all right?" Kendall cried out, concerned. From the doorway, she had seen Erica sway and rushed to her side.

"I feel so strange," Erica reported. "Is the room spinning?"

"Not right now," Opal said to the other ghosts. "But she should have been here at dawn!"

"Zach, get her a chair!" Kendall ordered.

"Erica, how old are you?" Zartz-Lily, Zift-Brooke and Zetz-Maria repeated in unison.

"Why are you asking her that?" a furious Kendall demanded. "No wonder she's dizzy!"

From the Main Ballroom, Zach brought out an antique Queen Anne Chair, tastefully upholstered in red brocade. It was, of course, to be auctioned off as part of the Estate Sale.

"Oh, thank you!" Erica breathed, sinking down into it.

Edmund couldn't believe his eyes.

"It's the chair!" he cried out, his voice rising and his arms flailing in excitement. "It's the chair! The chair is the time machine!"

"ERICA, HOW OLD ARE YOU?"

Erica fainted.

_Has Edmund found the time machine? Are the Galioscians about to find out the trigger? Is all material reality about to go BOOM? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your review is welcome!_


	20. Chapter 20

_Chapter 20 – "The Eyes of Love Cannot be Deceived by Lies"_

"IT'S THE CHAIR! IT'S THE CHAIR! THE CHAIR IS THE TIME MACHINE"

Brooke turned to Edmund, unable to believe what she had heard him holler.

"Edmund," she gasped, "are you sure?"

Meanwhile, a frantic Jack had made his way to an unconscious Erica. Quickly, he knelt down in front of the chair and looked up at her. She was slumped forward, eyes closed, breathing shallow.

"Erica! Erica! Speak to me!" he implored her.

"Mother, wake up!" Kendall yelled, alarmed.

"Ryan, what's wrong with her?" Greenlee wanted to know, not caring that much but sensing her father's distress.

"Erica, wake up!" Ryan tried, but to no noticeable avail.

"Did you do that to her?" Zach asked Zetz-Maria, having observed the whole scene. "Why? Was it something she said?"

"No," Zetz-Maria answered sourly, "it was something she didn't WANT to say."

"Has anybody called the paramedics?" Jack asked frantically, moving away from his wife and reaching for his cell phone.

Erica slumped further forward and would have fallen, had not Zach caught her in the nick of time and gently pushed her back onto the chair.

"Mother!" Kendall cried out. "Zach do something!"

Zach kissed Erica on the mouth.

"Son of a bitch," the real Maria's ghost muttered, meaning it.

"Kendall, what happened?" Bianca cried out. "Ryan, Greenlee what happened?" She had come through the front door, just as Erica had slumped. Miranda, whom Bianca carried in her arms, looked equally concerned.

"I don't know, Binx," Kendall admitted, sounding at her wits end. "She just passed out! Jack, did you get through to the paramedics? Zach, please stop kissing my Mother!"

Doing as he was told, Zach slowly pulled away just as Erica's eyes fluttered open.

"Welcome back," he greeted her softly. "Try not to talk."

"Mind your own business," Zartz-Lily told him. "Erica, how old are --"

"Shut up with that already!" Kendall screamed. "You wanna kill her?"

"I suppose we do," Zift-Brooke supposed.

"Maria, I almost understand why you strayed," Opal confided quietly, careful not to let Edmund overhear her. "That Zach is something else!"

"Slater, get the hell away from my wife!" Jack shouted at Zach, suddenly as furious as he was frantic.

"Killjoy," Zach replied.

"Listen everyone!" Brooke broke in. "Edmund says that red chair is the time machine!"

All ghostly eyes were suddenly not on Erica.

"Edmund, are you sure?" Opal asked for them all.

"Definitely," he affirmed loudly. "That chair Erica is sitting on is the time machine!"

Every Galiosian ear perked up.

"Erica, get the hell off of that chair!" Zetz-Maria shouted.

Zartz-Lily took a less strident approach. "Erica, I think Maria means you would probably be more comfortable in the living room."

"Yes," Zift-Brooke chimed it, "the living room would be infinitely better. Less people, more air. You wanna get out of that chair now, Erica?"

Jack scooped up a languid Erica into his arms and followed Zift-Brooke and Zetz-Maria out of the hall, trailed by Reggie, Greenlee, Ryan, Kendall, Bianca and Miranda.

"I guess you want me to stay here," Zach called after them.

"They're taking her to the living room that was burned to the ground at dawn?" Opal inquired.

But, as all of them discovered upon following Erica and the Montgomery Clan out of the hall, the Wildwood living room had been miraculously restored to its unburned state.

"Glory be, it's healed itself!" Opal exclaimed.

"How could it?" Marian wanted to know.

"It couldn't," Lily frowned. "Only somehow it did."

"Come on, Lily," Edmund urged her urgently, "let's go back and see what my good friends have in mind for that chair!"

"You're being sarcastic, right?" Lily asked him. "They're not really your good friends anymore, are they? Sometimes I'm not sure when a person is being sarcastic, but in this case, I'm pretty sure that you are. Aren't you?"

"Come on, gang," Brooke said to the other ghosts. "Let's go with Edmund and Lily back to the time machine!"

When they got back to the hall, they found Zartz-Lily sitting, legs crossed, in the red chair. Zach was standing next to her.

"Oh, Lily, look!" Stuart exclaimed to the real Lily. "You're guarding the time machine!"

"That's Zartz, not me," Lily pointed out. "But you're right, Stuart. He's definitely guarding that chair."

Edmund smiled, although the others couldn't begin to imagine why.

--

Myrtle was getting restless. Squashed between the leading citizens of Pine Valley and all of Edmund's earthly possessions, she felt an unexpected desire to be somewhere else, anywhere else. "Erica, where are you?" she wondered, walking back into the hall to look for her.

"Oh, she passed out cold, and when she came to, the family took her into the living room," Zach filled Myrtle in when she got there. "I wasn't invited. But they'll let you in."

"Zach, you scoundrel!" Myrtle laughed. "What did you do to make my girl faint?"

"Mrs. Fargate, what a thing to say!" he evaded deftly.

"Scoundrel," she repeated, not without affection, as she left to search for Erica in the living room.

"Erica, how old are you?" Zetz-Maria was asking pleasantly as Myrtle entered the room.

Erica smiled but said nothing.

"Oh, I give up!" Zift-Brooke capitulated. "Let's grab that chair and blow this Galaxy!"

--

Zartz-Lily was wondering idly when the time machine was going to go off, when her confederates rejoined her.

"What should we do?" he asked them. "Leave it here, go home and wait for the inevitable Big Bang?"

Zift-Brooke wasn't so sure. "We can't risk leaving Edmund here to deactivate it."

"Edmund's only a spirit," Zetz-Maria reminded him. "He can't deactivate the time machine without the help of somebody who's alive. And at this point everybody he knows is dead!"

"It's all true!" Opal said mournfully. "Edmund, all material reality's goose sure looks cooked!"

"At least Erica didn't tell them her real age," Stuart said, always looking for the positive in any situation. "So they can't pull the trigger!"

At that moment a tall, slim, stately woman with astounding red hair, who looked very like Katharine Hepburn, strode through the front door. "Where's Maria?" she demanded.

Zetz-Maria went to her. "Can I help you, Madame?" she asked.

Mrs. Tiwiliger made a face. "Who the hell are you supposed to be? Where's my Maria?"

"That's telling him!" the real Maria's ghost said with real feeling. "Get him, Shirley!"

"Stuart, who is that?" Marian whispered.

"She's my piano teacher," Maddie answered. "I guess she came to bid on the piano."

"How does she know that isn't the real Maria?" Brooke wondered aloud.

The real Maria knew. "The eyes of love cannot be deceived by lies."

"Look, Zartz, we may as well go home," Zetz-Maria said to him, ignoring Mrs. Twiliger's accusation. "We can safely leave the time machine here to blow up all by itself whenever it's ready. We don't need the trigger now that we know where it is. Besides, it looks like we'll never find out Erica Kane's real age!"

"Oh, I know how old Erica is!" Mrs. Tiwiliger spoke up. "I taught her piano when she was a little girl. I don't know why you need to know it, but tell me what you've done with my Maria and I'll be happy to tell you Erica's age!"

Zartz-Lily, Zift-Brooke and Zetz-Maria joined hands and walked in a line toward Mrs. Tiwiliger. "HOW OLD IS ERICA KANE?"

"Mrs. Tiwiliger, don't tell!" Edmund's ghost cried out. But what remained of his Galioscian powers had been spent on keeping Erica silent. He had become too human to counter this new onslaught.

"Mrs. Tiwiliger, can I have a word with you?" Zach asked her pleasantly.

"Homewrecker!" she accused him, having heard from Maria in detail all he had done to destroy her marriage. "What have you done with my Maria?"

"Get him, Shirley," Edmund echoed.

"She's ignoring us!" Zift-Brooke realized. "Why is she ignoring us?"

"Let's get scarier," Zetz-Maria suggested. "Something more monsterish will get her attention!"

"We're in a Soap Opera," Zartz-Lily reminded them. "Not 'Godzilla's Revenge'. Let's be scary, and yet appropriate."

Taking his words to heart, they morphed into 8-foot bars of Ivory Soap.

"MRS. TIWILIGER, HOW OLD IS ERICA KANE?"

Too stunned to do anything else, as three 8-foot bars of Ivory, foaming at what might have been their mouths, advanced toward her, Mrs. Tiwiliger told them Erica Kane's real age.

All the walls of Wildwind began to vibrate as they faded in and out of visibility, accompanied by a faint, almost melodic hum. The red chair, however, paid no attention to the revelation.

"Please repeat that," Zartz requested, too engrossed to notice the effect her words had on the walls and lack of effect they had on the chair. "Twice."

Before Mrs. Tiwiliger could comply, the red chair rose up five feet from the floor and began flying around the room.

"Shouldn't we try to catch that?" Zift asked, as it flew by him on its way to the Main Ballroom.

"We're soap," Zartz reminded him. "How can we catch anything?"

"And we don't have to!" Zetz was sure, "All we have to do is repeat Erica Kane's real age twice more!"

And that is exactly what they would have done, if Zach hadn't zapped all three of them with his Super-Sonic-Mega-Lazer-Ray-Gun.

_Where did Zach get a Super-Sonic-Mega-Lazer-Ray-Gun? Why didn't the red chair react to the trigger? How scary are three 8-foot bars of Ivory Soap? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	21. Chapter 21

_Chapter 21 – "This Is Pine Valley. Anything Can Happen"_

Adam was inspecting Edmund's Pulitzer Prize when the red chair flew into the Main Ballroom, directly at him.

"Dad!" JR yelled, tackling him to the ground before the flying chair could decapitate him.

"What the fudge is that?" Adam gasped, only he didn't say "fudge".

"A red brocade Queen Anne Chair!" Di(xie) told him, ducking as it came around again to their side of the Ballroom.

"I can see that!" Adam growled. "But what the hell is it doing in orbit?"

-------------------------------------------

"What happened to your ex-friends?" Lily was asking Edmund.

"They appear to have been shot to Hell," Edmund murmured, trying to understand what they had witnessed.

"Not to Hell," Zach disagreed. "But close enough. I zapped them back to Galios IV."

"In one piece?" Lily asked doubtfully, counting the soap bubbles floating in the air.

"Never fear, Lily," Zach comforted her, snapping shut his Super-Sonic-Mega-Laser-Ray-Gun, so that it folded neatly into itself not unlike a Totes umbrella. "They will recover. Galiosicans are a resilient lot."

"How can Zach know about Galios IV?" an amazed Marian asked an amazed Stuart.

"And how can Zach hear us?" an equally amazed Opal asked. "Unless he's dead."

"Zach, are you dead?" Lily asked him immediately.

"Not so far," Zach replied, "but it's early yet. This is Pine Valley, Lily. Anything can happen."

As if on cue, an hysterical collection of Pine Valley's most prominent citizens stampeded out of the Main Ballroom, chased by the flying red brocade Queen Anne Chair.

"Edmund, where in tarnation is that time machine flying off to now?" Opal wanted to know, as it whizzed by.

"Looks like it's headed for the Montgomerys," Zach predicted.

-------------------------------------------

"Erica, are you sure you're feeling better?" Jack was asking his wife as the chair flew in and landed gently beside her.

"I'm right as rain," Erica reported, as the chair took off again and flew back out of the room.

"I think it wants us to follow it," Myrtle surmised.

-------------------------------------------

"I still don't understand why that scum is able to hear us," Sam was saying as the chair returned from the living room, followed by Erica and all her family. He shared Mrs. Tiwiliger's opinion of Zach and nothing could change his mind on that score.

"Zach hears us because he's Galioscian," Edmund explained. "I didn't realize he was until he came in with the red chair for Erica. When the truth hit me, I couldn't believe my eyes. I recognized him for the first time. Zach is from Galios IV, just like me and our not so dear departed guests. I guess that's why I've always detested him."

"Edmund, you detested him because he was my lover in the desert when I had amnesia," Maria differed. "And because he came to Pine Valley to find me."

"That's not why I came to Pine Valley," Zach revealed. "It wasn't to find you, Maria."

"It was to find ME," Edmund realized. "They sent you to find me!"

"And the time machine too?" Lily asked.

"Yes, Lily, that too," Zach affirmed.

"But if Zartz, Zift and Zetz sent you to find Edmund and the time machine, why did you zap them into soapy smithereens?" Opal demanded.

"Maybe they weren't the Galiosicans who sent him," Lily theorized.

"Maybe they weren't," Zach agreed evasively.

"Wait a second!" Maria cried out in equal measures of horror and shock. "BOTH loves of my life are Aliens?"

"Yes, well, Shirley is from New Hampshire, if that's any comfort to you," Zach told her. "So, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, you are capable of forming human attachments."

"Congratulations, Mom," Maddie sneered.

"Oh look, the time machine is back," Zach smiled, as the chair landed beside him. "Anybody wanna go for a ride?"

"That thing nearly took my head off," Adam said hotly. "Obviously it didn't do that on its own."

"Obviously," Zach agreed. "I wonder who has the Remote."

"You're the Remote," Lily said to Zach. "At first you made the chair fly as a diversion so Zartz, Zift and Zetz wouldn't notice you were getting ready to zap them. And then you sent the chair from room to room to scare people so they'd go home while you try to help us deactivate the time machine."

"You're a good detective, Lily," Zach smiled at her.

"And the chair isn't the time machine," Lily continued. "If it were, when Mrs. Tiwiliger announced Erica's age, even once, it would have done something. I saw the walls fading in and out, and I think I heard a humming sound, but the chair didn't do anything at all. The chair is only a chair. Wildwind is the time machine!"

"But Edmund, you announced the red chair was the time machine!" Opal challenged him. "In capital letters you announced it!"

"That was for the benefit of Zartz, Zift and Zetz," Edmund explained. "It never hurts to mislead your enemies while you try to find the real time machine."

Lily could understand that, but that led her to another question.. "Zach, did you believe Edmund about the red chair being the time machine?"

"Right up to the second the walls started doing the Samba," he admitted.

"That means yes?" Lily asked to make sure.

"Yes," he told her.

"Zach, who the hell are you talking to?" Adam inquired not so politely.

"I don't know why I miss him so," Stuart whispered to Marian. "He's such a nogoodnick!"

"Yes, Darling, but he's YOUR nogoodnick," Marian explained. "And he used to write us such beautiful checks!"

"Who do you think you're talking to, Zach?" Aidan asked him directly.

"No butterflies, Sam," Lily confided as she looked at Aidan objectively. "He's awfully cute." She smiled at her boyfriend. "But he's not you!"

"True," Maddie had to agree. "For one thing, he's alive!"

The group in the hall had thinned out, as people interested only in the Estate Sale drifted away, disappointed and completely oblivious to what had gone on that day and what was still going on as they turned their backs and left Wildwind.

"Come on, Mama, let's go," Babe urged Krystal. "Maybe JR will let me visit with Little Adam if we follow them home and beg nicely."

"Dream on," JR said heartlessly.

"Honey, you don't mean that," Di(xie) hoped. "You're too good and forgiving a person to hold a grudge!"

"She lied to me, Mom," JR explained. "Over and over. I can't stand being lied to."

Di(xie) sighed and Adam chuckled.

"Ryan, let's go home," Greenlee suggested. "But first let's stop for some ice cream and pickles!"

Kendall plopped herself down on the red chair, next to her husband.

"Methinks this party is breaking up, snookums," she said to him, suspecting she had been kept out of an extremely interesting loop and resenting that through and through. "Perhaps we should leave while the leaving is good."

"Not just yet, sweetums," he said to her. "I haven't gotten around to saving all material reality. By the by, is Greenlee pregnant? I only ask because she seems to be craving ice cream and pickles."

Kendall shrugged. "Better her than me. Listen, it's getting late. You can play with all your silly friends tomorrow!"

"But half of them are still dead," he pointed out. "And I can't just leave them like that! Besides, there's Shirley to consider."

Shirley Tiwiliger was standing, mouth open, blinking rapidly, covered head to foot in soap suds.

Zach approached her carefully, lest she blurt out Erica's true age in surprise, fright or both.

"What happened to the big soapy monsters?" she asked Zach quietly.

"Nothing they didn't deserve," he told her. "Now look in my eyes, dear heart and begin to forget."

"What am I forgetting?" Mrs. Tiwiliger asked weakly.

"Erica Kane's real age," Zach answered.

Thinking he was asking her a question, Mrs. Tiwiliger told him Erica's real age.

"No!" Erica screamed. "Nobody listen to her! She's insane! She's lying! She's making it up! It isn't true!"

Meanwhile, all of the walls of Wildwind began to vibrate and fade in and out of visibility while a faint, almost melodic hum accompanied them.

"Why, that's 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree!'" Opal exclaimed, recognizing the tune.

"Actually, that's the Galiosican National Anthem," Zach corrected her. He turned back to Mrs. Tiwiliger. "Shirley, forget all about Erica's age! Never speak of it again!"

"Thank you, Zach!" Erica cried out with all of her heart.

"That's how old you are?" Jack asked her softly.

"Of course, that isn't how old I am!" Erica proclaimed loudly and clearly enough for all, living and dead, to hear. "Tell them you were mistaken, Mrs. Tiwiliger!"

"Who's Mrs. Tiwiliger?" asked Mrs. Tiwiliger.

Zach sighed. "Temporary amnesia," he diagnosed. "Most of her memory will return in a little while. Probably."

"Except for that lie about my age?" Erica checked tensely.

Zach moved slightly toward Erica, a rakish grin playing on his rakish mouth.

"If you kiss her again, it's the last thing you'll ever do," Kendall warned.

"Point well taken," he relented, knowing that even a Galiosican would be slow to recover from the wrath of Kendall Hart.

"Oh, Shirley, I hope you don't forget me!" Maria whispered because it was true.

Edmund felt an unfamiliar surge of sympathy for his wife. "Don't worry, Maria. Zach wouldn't hurt anybody permanently." He looked fondly at Lily. "Not even a trio of big soapy Galiosicans bent on cosmic destruction!"

"Where's Lily?" Jackson demanded, suddenly noticing that his daughter (or more accurately the Alien he mistook for his daughter) was no longer in the hall. "Lily, where are you?"

"I'm dead, Dad," Lily whispered in reply. "Oh, Sam, this is bad! My Dad can't hear me! And even if he could hear me, I don't think he'd feel good knowing that I'm not alive anymore!"

Sam realized all at once that HIS Dad could hear him, and he didn't want to waste any more time.

"I love you, Dad," he told Edmund. "Dead or alive."

"So do I!" Maddie said solemnly. "Wait a second! Daddy, if you're from outer space, then I'm half-Alien." This was a brand new thought for her. "Do I have superpowers?"

"I think you take after my side of the family," Maria told her gently. "Sorry about that, sweetie!"

"I'm not sorry, Mommy! I love you!" And with that, Maddie threw herself in her mother's arms and, of course, fell right through them.

"I think the worst thing about being dead is that I can't touch you," Lily said to Sam, seeing Maddie hit the floor. "I don't usually want to touch people. When I was alive, I mean. And I didn't want them to touch me either. But that's changed." She reached out to Sam and watched her ghostly hand pass through his. "Sam, I think you're the reason I've changed."

Sam's heart could not feel any fuller if it were beating. "I've changed too, Lily. I used to feel so mad all the time. Ever since my Dad was murdered and I found out about my Mom and Zach. But I'm not angry anymore. I love you too much to be angry at anything or anyone!"

"Including me?" Maria asked tentatively.

Sam smiled. "I love you Mom. I always did!"

Maria laughed. "Looks like I got my family back!"

Opal sighed. "Looks like you did, honey. Too bad everybody is d---"

"Erica, have you spoken to Opal today?"

Palmer Cortland had wandered through the open front door, a worried look on his worried face.

"No, I tried calling her a dozen times but she wasn't at home," Erica reported. "I was hoping she'd be here." She looked around the hall. "But she isn't here."

"He's worried about me," Opal said in wonder. "The old coot is worried about me!"

"He loves you, Opal," Brooke assured her. "He's always loved you."

Opal wiped away a tear. "Too little, too late," she sniffed.

"It's never too late," Brooke said, looking at Edmund.

Maria smiled at Maddie and Sam. "It's never too late!"

All of them heard a horribly loud ticking coming from every corner of the Mansion.

"Edmund!" Lily gasped in horror as the walls began fading in and out to the tune of the Galioscian National Anthem. "I think it's too late!"

_Could Lily be right? Are our heroes too late to stop matter from crashing into antimatter? A couple of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your review is welcome!_


	22. Chapter 22

_Chapter 22 – "Thinking Outside of the Box"_

Kendall wanted to go home. She couldn't understand why she was still at Wildwind. She couldn't understand why Zach refused to leave, or why he had kissed her Mother, or why the walls were fading in and out of sight in time to an old Tony Orlando song, or what was making that loud ticking noise that was driving her crazy.

"Is that a bomb?" Myrtle was asking Zach.

"And then some," he replied evenly. "Myrtle, why don't you escort my wife and the rest of our friends out of this place before it blows sky-high?"

Myrtle didn't have to be asked twice. But Kendall wasn't going anywhere without her husband-in-name-only.

"I'm not leaving without you," she informed him, trying to keep her voice steady.

"I'm not sure I can stop this thing from going off," he told her. "You aren't safe in here, Kendall."

She thought that through. "Will I be safe out there?"

Zach didn't answer, so Kendall tried again.

"Will any of us be safe anywhere?"

Wildwind had begun to shake.

"Brooke, I think this is it," Edmund was saying. "Kids, forgive me! Maria, forgive me! Opal, forgive me! Stuart and Marian, forgive me! Lily, forgive me!"

But Lily refused to admit defeat.

"There has to be a solution," she told Sam. "Every mystery has a solution!"

The ticking got louder.

"Kendall, come on!" Erica yelled, as Jack dragged her to the front door.

"I'm not going anywhere, snookums," Kendall told Zach. "Wanna make something out of it?"

He wanted to tell her she was nuts and kiss her. He wanted to tell her he had fallen in love with her the second he laid eyes on her and hadn't stopped falling since and kiss her. He wanted to tell her he needed to save all material reality mostly because he needed to save her. And kiss her.

Instead he made time stand still.

"The room has stopped shaking and that song and ticking has stopped!" Marian was the first to notice.

Actually, EVERYTHING had stopped. Erica and Jack stood motionless at the front door, Adam, Di(xie) and JR stood motionless behind them, and behind them were Bianca, Miranda, Greenlee, Ryan, Tad, Aidan, Reggie, Derick, Krystal, Babe, Jamie and Mrs. Tiwiliger. Kendall sat motionless on the red chair.

"Boy howdy, that's some trick!" Opal marveled. "Edmund, did you do that?"

He shook his head. "I'm not Galioscian enough these days to pull off a Time-Stop."

"Well, luckily, I still am," Zach said, sounding more cheerful than he felt. "At least this gives us some space to figure this thing out. But I've only postponed the inevitable, unless we can unplug this damn thing."

Stuart looked with concern at his twin brother and nephew, as they stood frozen. "Why can we move and talk, and they can't?"

"We're not a part of time," Lily explained with a sigh. "Not anymore."

"Edmund, concentrate," Zach urged. "You designed this damn thing. How is it wired? Where's the detonator?"

But it was no use. The memory would not resurface.

At least not for Edmund.

"It's in the walls," Maria realized. "When I renovated years ago, after we first got married, you told me to leave the walls alone. Edmund, you wouldn't even let me hammer in a nail to hang a picture!"

"That's not good," Zach said. "If the device that crashes matter into antimatter is diffuse, how can we --"

Lily knew. "Erica's real age. It has to be said another three times."

"That would only accelerate the detonation," Sam reasoned. "We'd blow up faster."

But Lily was thinking outside of the box. "The trigger accelerates the detonation if it isn't already underway. That's probably what kicked it off. Even though Erica's age was only said twice, it was enough to start things going. But what would happen if the trigger was pulled during the detonation sequence?"

"The detonation would speed up?" Zach guessed.

"Possibly," Lily granted. "Or else the system would be overloaded and it would shut down."

"The trigger was designed to be used when the detonation isn't already underway," Edmund said slowly. "Maybe using it now would be overkill."

"You wanna rephrase that?" Opal requested, not liking his choice of words, given their precarious situation.

"Lily might be right!" Edmund decided.

"Yes," Lily agreed, "I might be."

"And what if you're wrong, honey?" Opal had to ask.

Zach and every ghost in the room knew the answer to that.

"I think we should try it," Zach said. "What have we got to lose? Besides all material reality, I mean."

Maria cleared her throat. "You know what? We're already dead. If Lily's wrong about using the trigger to stop the time machine from exploding, we'll only wind up a little deader. I say, go for it!"

Edmund remembered why he had loved her. "That's the spirit, Maria!"

Lily turned to Sam. "I want to say good-bye to you, Sam. Just in case."

He nodded. "It won't be good-bye, Lily. It can't be. We've just said hello to each other."

Marian looked fondly at the young couple. "Stuart, whatever happens, we've been lucky to find each other. You are the love of my life, you know."

He wished he could hold her one last time. "Marian, you ARE my life!"

Opal thought sadly about Palmer and Petey. "I love you, you old coot," she whispered. "And you too, Petey. No matter how old they make you!"

Maddie smiled at Maria. "I'm glad we made up, Mom! I'm glad we got our family back!"

Maria blinked back tears. "I'm glad too, sweetie. Whatever happens, we're together!"

"I love you, kids," Edmund said to Sam and Maddie. "Thank you, Maria, for the life we shared!"

Brooke looked down at the floor, not wanting to intrude on what might well be Edmund's last moments with his family.

Zach knelt before his wife. "You can't hear me, Kendall, but this is the last chance I may ever get to tell you I love you. So I'm telling you. I love you, Kendall Hart!"

Although he knew it wasn't possible, Zach thought Kendall's face changed, as if she had heard him somehow.

When Brooke looked up, Edmund was beside her.

There was nothing left for her to say to him in the last moment they might ever have. But there was something he needed to say to her.

"For always and ever," he said. "For as long as long is!"

She smiled. "Always," she echoed.

"Always."

Zach sighed and made time move again.

The crowd at the door continued to run outside, except for Erica and Adam. Erica wouldn't leave without Kendall and Adam wanted answers.

The ticking was a roar.

"Zach!" Kendall screamed. "Do something!"

"I'll try," he told her.

"What the hell is going on?" Adam demanded, shaking in his boots. "Slater, is this your doing?"

Zach smiled and said Erica Kane's real age.

"What did you say that for?" Erica screamed. "Kendall, let's get OUT of here!"

Wildwind began to shake apart.

"Nothing personal, Erica," Zach wanted her to know. "A man couldn't have a better mother-in-law than you!" He took a deep breath and repeated Erica Kane's real age.

Wildwind's roof blew off.

"Kendall!" Erica screamed at the top of her lungs. "Come on!"

"Kendall, your Mother's calling," Zach told her. "Time to go home."

"I can't leave him, Mother!" Kendall cried out as she fell into Zach's embrace.

"Why can't you leave me?" Zach asked her.

"Because I love you, Zach Slater," she replied, clinging to him for dear life as Wildwind came apart at the seams. "Now say what's on your mind already!"

Zach hugged Kendall like there was no tomorrow, which he was fairly certain was true, and said Erica Kane's real age for the third time.

_Was Lily be right? Can Erica's real age save all material reality from going BOOM? A couple of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your review would be cherished!_


	23. Chapter 23

_Chapter 23 – "The Gamble"_

It worked like a charm.

The walls fading in and out stopped, the shaking stopped, the ticking stopped, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" stopped and Wildwind healed itself instantaneously.

"Whew!" Opal breathed. "Are we in the clear now, Edmund?"

"I guess so," he guessed. "Zach, what do you think?"

Zach thought he was the luckiest Galioscian alive. "You can let go of me now, Kendall. We're okay."

Reluctantly, she loosened her grip on him. "For real?" she asked.

"As real as it gets," he confirmed.

But Adam still wanted answers.

"Damn you, Slater, are you responsible for all of this?"

"Some of it." He smiled at Lily. "But not the genius part."

"There are some loose ends," Lily announced. "Can we tie them up now or wait until later?" Loose ends really bothered her, so she was hoping the others would opt for "now".

But Kendall, who couldn't hear or see Lily, had other things on her mind and heart.

"I don't know exactly what happened here," she told Zach, "but I have a feeling it's amazing."

"Amazing," he agreed. "I'll tell you all about it later at home."

Later he would tell her that he had wanted her to leave with Erica not because she'd be safe out of Wildwind – nowhere would have been safe if the time machine went off – but because he couldn't think straight when she was around him. Later she would tell him that she had stayed because she trusted him, which had confused her because she never trusted anybody. Later they wouldn't be saying much more for the rest of the night and most of the next day.

"Slater, stop ignoring me!" Adam demanded hotly. "I want answers!"

"Oh, Adam, forget it!" Erica urged. "In time we'll know exactly what happened here, I'm sure." She hugged Kendall, winked at Zach, and left Wildwind in search of the rest of her family, whom she found quickly enough outside.

"Things seem to have quieted down in there," Jack observed to her. "But I still can't find Lily."

Having heard no objection from the others, Lily had begun listing loose ends.

"For one thing I don't understand why Zartz, Zetz and Zift didn't come back and stop us from deactivating the time machine."

"They would have if they could," Zach assured her. "But I zapped them right into a jail cell on Galios IV. Maximum security. That'll slow 'em down for a while."

"Galios IV?" Kendall asked, puzzled. "What the hell is Galios IV?"

"Time to go Kendall," Zach said. "I'll see you at home later."

"Later," she affirmed, kissing him good-bye.

"Oh, one thing I do want to mention," he mentioned as they walked to the door. "You may as well know now because it may take some getting used to." Steeling himself against her reaction to the revelation he was about to make, he searched for the right words. "I'm not exactly human."

Kendall laughed out loud as she walked out the door. "Oh, Zach! Tell me something I DON'T know!"

Lily was continuing to list loose ends. "And how could Wildwind be the time machine, Edmund? Wildwind was here before you ever came to Pine Valley!"

"The time machine slipped into Wildwind, like a hand slips into a glove," Edmund suddenly remembered. "The real Wildwind was already here. And when the time machine takes off, the real Wildwind will still be here."

"And we'll still be haunting it," Maria predicted mournfully.

"Not if I can help it," Zach said at once.

"Slater, who in blazes are you jabbering to?" Adam demanded, thoroughly exasperated. "Thin air?"

"Go away, Chandler" Zach replied. "Show's over."

Adam stalked off in a huff.

"I'm going to go find Stuart. If I have to be with somebody who makes no sense, at least it can be with somebody I love!"

"Stuart, did you hear that?" Marian cried out to him. "Adam loves you again!"

"So he does." Stuart smiled in relief, joy and because he was Stuart. "So he does!"

"Zach, why didn't the other Galiosicans recognize you like Edmund did?" Lily asked, near the end of her loose ends list. "Galiosicans always can recognize each other, right?"

"They recognized me," Zach told her matter-of-factly. "They just never suspected I was packing heat. And they never dreamed I would help you guys."

"Why did you help us?" Edmund asked him, contributing his own loose end to the discussion.

"It's my job," Zach answered. "I'm a cop."

"Glory be!" Opal breathed. "An Intergalactic Alien Cop right here in Pine Valley!"

Zach nodded. "What better place to combat Alien Invaders and disable lethal time machines?"

"Are you going to arrest Edmund?" Brooke asked tensely, recalling her soul mate's original mission, which was to destroy Pine Valley.

Zach shook his head. "Edmund is a changed man, Brooke. Love and Pine Valley have rehabilitated him. Why should I arrest him?"

"I have no idea," Lily said honestly. "But I do have another loose end. The loosest end of all!"

Everyone paid close attention to her.

"Why doesn't the red chair bother me? It's red brocade! Red! And I don't care!"

Sam thought he knew the answer to that. "Remember how I was saying that loving you took the place of all the anger I felt?"

She remembered.

"Well, maybe I've had that kind of effect on you. Maybe red doesn't make you freak out anymore because we're a couple now."

Lily wished with her entire being that was the reason. "I think it's because I'm dead, Sam," she sad sadly because that was what she truly thought.

"Which brings us to the next item on our agenda," Zach said cheerfully. "Where do you suppose the time control is?"

"Time control?" Brooke repeated. "What's a time control?"

"A navigation device that moves the time machine through time," Edmund remembered. "I wonder what I did with that!"

"Why in hades do we need it?" Opal asked. "What good would it do us to move through time?"

Lily brightened. The discussion had turned theoretical, and theoretical discussions always appealed to her.

"If we could go backward or forward in time, maybe we could insert ourselves into another timeline."

"How would we do that, Lily?" Sam asked with real interest.

"Well, since we're only spirits, we could merge with our living characters. We can't do that in this timeline because we've been incinerated. But in another timeline I think we could live again."

"How can we know we'd merge?" Maria asked her. "Why wouldn't we wind up existing side by side with our living selves?"

"Because we're not really real," Lily explained. "This is a Soap Opera. There can't be two Lily Montgomerys on "All My Children". At least not at the same time. Not even if one is a ghost."

There was a skeptical silence.

"Look, it's a gamble!" Zach finally said. "But Lily's last theory saved matter from crashing into antimatter, so I vote to go for it!"

"You don't get a vote," Maria pouted. "You're still alive."

"My point exactly," Zach replied. 'What have you got to lose? The worst that can happen is you'll wind up in another timeline keeping your living self company!"

"Actually, the worst that can happen is that we won't find another timeline where we're alive. Then we'd be in limbo forever."

Sam thought he knew exactly the right thing to say. "Lily, being in limbo with you for forever would be better than Heaven!"

"No, Sam, it would be bad," Lily disagreed. "But we may not end up in limbo! This could work!"

Opal had another thought. And not a happy one. "We don't even know where the dang time control is, so what difference does it make?"

"Your calendar watch," Maria said to Edmund. "Brooke, remember Edmund's stupid calendar watch?"

Brooke smiled. "The one with all the dials and flashing lights?"

Edmund laughed. "I remember that! Gee, I haven't worn it for years and years! But when I first came to Pine Valley, it never left my wrist!"

It took under 10 seconds for all of them to run out of the hall and into the Main Ballroom, where Zach (who, being the only one alive was the only one who could move anything) ransacked the room in search of the calendar watch/time controller.

But Edmund saw it first. It was sitting on a table right next to his Pulitzer Prize.

"Still ticking," Zach reported, bringing it to his ear.

"Which is more than we are, Darling," Marian said ruefully. "So how does this gadget work, Edmund?"

"Zach sets the date and time, pushes the button and we're off."

It sounded simple enough.

"Who goes first?" Opal wanted to know.

When nobody volunteered, she had a suggestion.

"Let's all pick the same time. I guess we'll have to go back, because we don't exist anymore. How's about Midnight at the séance, right before we were torched?"

"What will stop Zartz, Zift and Zetz from torching us again?" Maria objected.

"They were popcorn kernels," Opal recalled. "I'll grab a wet sponge and figure out something to cool their jets."

"But we might not remember the danger we were in," Lily cautioned. "We might not remember anything that happened to us so we'd let it all happen again!"

"Look, there are an infinite number of possible timelines," Zach told them. "I could pick a timeline in the future where your characters are alive because Zartz, Zift and Zetz never visited Pine Valley so they didn't interfere with the séance."

"How could you do that, Zach?" Stuart asked.

"I'm Galioscian," he reminded them all. "We're good at this time travel thing."

"I say go for it," Maddie said. "I'm tired of being dead!"

"What do you think, Edmund?" Brooke asked him because he had been so quiet during the debate.

"I think Zach's right. It's a gamble." He smiled at them all. "I agree with Maddie. Go for it!"

"I think we should take a vote," Lily proposed.

Nobody could disagree so a vote was taken.

"Everybody in favor, say 'aye'!" Zach said.

Everybody said 'aye'.

"Everybody in opposed, say 'nay'!" Zach said.

There were no 'nays'.

"The 'ayes' have it!" Zach announced.

"Let's get going right now!" Opal suggested. "There gotta be some timeline better than this!"

_Will the ghosts find life in another timeline or find themselves stuck in limbo? A couple of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Reviews is welcome!_


	24. Chapter 24

_Chapter 24 – "Almost a Happy Ending"_

Zach picked a time one minute in the future and pushed the button. Dials whirred and lights flashed on the watch/time control. "Good luck everyone!" he wished them.

The ghosts waited in an agony of anticipation. But they didn't have to wait long. Almost at once the walls of Wildwind began fading in and out as the entire Mansion shook to the tune of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon". Nothing blew up however, which all took to be an encouraging sign.

"I don't feel any different!" a disappointed Maria said, when all was once again quiet and still.

"Why should you feel any different?" her Mother, Isabelle, asked her.

Maria blinked. She was in the Main Ballroom, standing between her Mother and Brooke English. The Ballroom was jammed with Pine Valley notables, who were at that moment busily going through Edmund's worldly possessions. Brooke looked as bewildered as Maria felt.

"Meha, I'm going to browse through Edmund's trench coats," Isabelle said to Maria, as she drifted away. "Remember, Brooke, I expect a discount!"

Meanwhile, the former ghosts were beginning to find one another.

"Hiya!" Lily greeted Brooke and Maria, as she and Sam walked over to them. "Guess we've successfully morphed into our characters! I feel bad about leaving the other timeline though."

"Omigod, we're alive!" Brooke gasped to Maria.

Maria looked at her hands and joyfully realized she could no longer see through them. "Brooke, we're solid! Sam, Lily, we're solid!"

"Stuart, I can't see through you anymore!" Marian cried out gleefully from the other end of the Ballroom.

"Marian, I can't see through you anymore either!" Stuart answered just as gleefully. They skipped happily toward Maria, Brooke, Lily and Sam.

"Glory be, we're back among the living!" Opal crowed, sashaying through the door and making her way to her friends from the other timeline.

"Mama!" Maddie laughed, following Opal. "Mama, it worked! We're alive again!"

"I can touch you, Sam!" Lily discovered much to their mutual delight. "And I can feel my heart beating!"

But to Opal, something did not fit. "The Estate Sale was over! Zach, I thought we were going forward in time!"

"This IS forward in time," Zach maintained. "In this timeline the Estate Sale didn't end in a panic because of a flying red chair. So it's still going on." He was standing next to Opal near Maria and Brooke. He was also standing next to Kendall at the front of the Ballroom, a fact which did not go over Opal's head.

"Lily, there goes your theory about the impossibility of two live identical characters sharing the same timeline," Opal observed.

"Zach is Galioscian," Lily reminded Opal, "so all bets are off."

"Lily what did you mean about being sorry to leave the other timeline?" Sam asked her. "What's to be sorry about?"

Lily frowned. "Sam, everyone we knew and loved back there thinks we've disappeared," she explained. "They don't even know we were dead. All they know is we're gone."

"Lily, there you are!" Jack yelled, practically galloping toward her. "Where were you all night? I was going out of my mind! Honey, you've got to remember to call me when you wander off!"

Lily smiled. "I guess we have to make this timeline our home."

"I guess so, honey," Opal guessed.

"Not me," Zach said, looking at his other self sparring with his wife.. "I've got to get back to the other timeline. Kendall's waiting for me to come home. We've bonded. She may be baking a cake."

Kendall was at that moment kicking the other Zach in the shins.

"In that timeline we bonded," he clarified. "In this timeline, we've a ways to go."

Just then Palmer spied Opal and sprinted toward her.

"Opal, we have to talk," he told her with great urgency. "It's Petey. He's been SORASED."

"How old did they make him?" Opal demanded with much apprehension.

"He's graduating PVU and he and Amanda are getting married!"

"Over my dead body!" the no longer dead Opal decried. "Smile, you old coot! We got us a storyline!"

"What are you all blathering on about?" Adam muttered, overhearing and, of course, not understanding. "Stuart, come over here! I need to make up with you so I can exit this madhouse!"

"Adam, you forgive me!" Stuart exclaimed, instantly loving his twin in this new timeline as much as he had ever loved him in any timeline.

"Stuart, there's nothing to forgive!" Adam replied, tearing up in spite of himself at the sound of all the emotion in his brother's voice.

"Darling, I told you there'd be a happy ending!" Marian laughed, thinking how wonderful life would be once again when their light bill was paid.

But sadly, not everybody was happy.

"I don't see Edmund!" a frightened Brooke cried out. "Where's Edmund?"

Lily and Opal knew the answer. He was there with them, but they and Zach were the only ones who could see him because he was still a ghost.

"Edmund has no future in Pine Valley," Zach told Brooke gently. "I'm so sorry, Brooke. He's still dead."

_After saving Wildwind, Pine Valley and all material reality, is Edmund still dead? Was everything he went through for nothing? A couple of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!_


	25. Chapter 25

_Chapter Twenty-Five – "Back to the Past"_

Edmund observed Brooke's despair knowing he could do nothing to help her. At least she was alive again, he thought. Seeking to accomplish that much for himself, he spoke to Zach.

"Before you take the time machine back to the original timeline, would you mind dropping me off in 2002?"

"Any particular date?" Zach inquired.

"My wedding day," Edmund answered. He motioned toward Brooke, who of course couldn't see or hear him. "Our wedding day. It was a turning point, and I'm hoping I'll turn in a different direction this time."

That was the day Maria, still thinking she was Maureen Gorman, had broken into Wildwind to kidnap Maddie. It was also the day Brooke told Edmund, after the ceremony, that Maria was still alive, a fact she had discovered weeks before. And it was also the day Edmund left Brooke at the alter and ran out of the chapel in search of Maria.

"You made a wrong turn that day, Edmund," Zach told him. "Do you think history will be rewritten if you go back in time?"

Edmund didn't really know. "I came back to Pine Valley to find the time machine so I could go back to a timeline where I still exist. I have no idea if I'll make different choices this time around." He looked at Brooke. "I pray I will."

"So do I," Zach commiserated. He set the watch/time control to 2002. "So long, everybody!"

"Good-bye, Edmund," Lily called out. "I'm glad you found the time machine and saved all material reality!"

"I couldn't have done it without you, Lily!" Edmund told her. "You're a first-rate detective!"

"It was fun!" She knew she was blushing but didn't mind because she knew that blushing was part of being alive. "Except for the scary part when we were incinerated, of course. That wasn't fun."

"Take good care of her, Sam," Edmund told his son.

"We'll take care of each other," Lily decided. "Is that okay, Sam?"

"Very okay," Sam said with all his heart.

"Edmund, were you going to leave without saying good-bye?" Opal said indignantly. "After all we've been through?"

"You're not the one he's running out on, Opal," Brooke told her perceptively.

"Thanks for everything, Opal," Edmund said sincerely, trying his best to ignore Brooke and failing miserably.

"I'm glad we could help you," Opal said. "So, Eddy, you're headed back to a timeline where you can live again?"

"That's the plan," Zach answered, fingering the watch/time control.

"Not so fast," Brooke said quickly. "What's the destination, Zach?"

"The past," Zach replied truthfully. "I'm taking Edmund back to your wedding day."

She nodded. "Sounds good to me. I'm coming along."

Edmund shook his head. "Zach, tell her it won't work. It's the past. We won't remember anything that's happened to us. Everything we did wrong we'll do again."

Zach nodded. "Edmund says the more the merrier."

Brooke smiled at Zach, knowing that was an outright lie. "Myrtle's right!" she laughed. "You're a scoundrel!"

"But Brooke, you can't go into another timeline!" Lily realized. "You're alive now. Two identical characters can't exist in the same timeline." She looked at Zach. "Unless they happen to be Galiosican."

Brooke had an idea. "Can I convert?" she asked Zach.

"No, but you can unmerge," he answered, waving his hand over her head.

In the next instant Brooke's spirit was leaving the body she had so recently made her own.

"It was nice being you," Brooke's ghost said to the Brooke she was suddenly standing next to.

"What's happening?" that Brooke asked, wandering off to join Maria and Isabelle at the trenchcoat rack.

"Edmund, I can see you again!" a dead but nevertheless overjoyed Brooke said. "Now we can BOTH go back in time to our wedding!"

"Brooke, this is all wrong!" Edmund protested. "I'll make all of the same mistakes again! I'll leave you at the alter! I'll go running after Maria and divorce you! You're throwing your future away for nothing!"

"Well, ya never know," Zach said pushing the button on the watch/time control. "Sometimes things work themselves out."

--

Brooke was biting her lip. The ceremony had been beyond beautiful. She had married the man she had always loved. This was her dream, and it had come true, gloriously true. And he loved her. She knew beyond knowing that Edmund loved her. She knew also that when she told him the truth about Maria she would lose him. But she had to tell him. How could she keep the love of her life away from the love of HIS life?

"Edmund, she's alive. Maria is alive." There. The words were spoken. Now he would leave her. Now the dream would end and the nightmare would begin. Now. Brooke held her breath and waited.

"No kidding," Edmund said. "Imagine that. After all this time. Alive, you say?"

Brooke started breathing again. Perhaps he hadn't understood her.

"She's probably still somewhere on the grounds. Aren't you going to go look for her? Edmund, Maria is alive! I've known for weeks and I haven't told you!"

He shrugged. "Brooke, I'm sure it seemed the right thing to do. When you think about it, it makes so much sense."

Something he said jogged a memory she didn't know she had. "What did you say?"

"It makes so much sense."

She nodded. "For always and ever," she said slowly, as if remembering a long-forgotten poem.

"For as long as long is," he replied.

"Always."

"Always."

Zach stood in the shadows, watching as Brooke and Edmund found their way back to each other. Grinning, he set the watch/time control for the timeline he knew he belonged in on the planet he knew he would never leave again.

--

_Our Adventure is nearly over. All that's left is the Epilogue! Please read on! Reviews are welcome!_


	26. Chapter 26

_Chapter 26 – "Simply Irresistible"_

The prisons on Galios IV have gourmet catering, wall-to-wall carpeting and intergalactic television. But the three mud puddles serving life sentences for their crimes still felt trapped.

"There's always a way out," Zartz was saying to the others.

"Not this time," Zift disagreed wholeheartedly. "This time we are thoroughly screwed."

"We should have picked another Soap Opera," Zetz said regretfully. "Starr Manning wouldn't have treated us this way!"

"Are you knocking Lily?" Zartz asked defensively.

"Get over her, Zartz," Zetz urged. "You've got to move on."

"I will," Zartz promised, already planning their escape. "Just give me a little time to work out the logistics."

"I wonder if Maria will get together with Shirley," Zetz wondered.

"Maria's on her way to Miami," Zartz informed him. "She's got a job with the FBI."

"CSI," Zift corrected him. "You think you're the only one who reads TV Guide?"

"I wonder if Zendall will stay together after Rylee breaks up?" Zetz wondered.

"Don't give it a thought, fellas!" Zach's voice boomed from the intergalactic television. "If we weren't already married, I'd invite you three to the wedding! You'd make adorable flower girls!"

"Who are you talking to, honey?" Kendall yawned.

"Three mud puddles," he answered truthfully.

"Tell them you're busy," she directed, reaching for him.

"You heard the lady," he said, pulling her close, "we're busy!"

The picture flickered twice and went dark.

The three mud puddles were quiet for a time.

Zartz was the first to speak.

"It won't last," he predicted.

"She'll always love Ryan," Zift agreed.

"He never got over Maria," Zetz agreed.

Zartz had a question.

"Do you think we could get the Cable Guy over here today? I don't wanna miss 'Doctor Who'!"

_And so with good triumphant and evil vanquished and left waiting for the Cable Guy, let our story finish here with the most glorious words that could ever end such a fairy tale. Everyone lived!_

_Th-th-th-that's all folks!_


End file.
